Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Zechariah 7:1

And 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;

Chap. Zec 7:1-3. The Deputation and their Question

1. in the fourth year ] This was nearly two years after Zechariah saw his visions (Zec 1:7), and about the same time before the completion of the Temple (Ezr 6:15). See General Introd. chap. II. p. 18.

Chisleu ] Chislev. R. V.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

In the fourth year of Darius – Two years after the series of visions, shown to him, and two years before the completion of the temple. Chisleu being December, it was the end of 518 b.c.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Zec 7:1-3

When they had sent unto the house of God Sherezer, and Regemmelech, and their men to pray before the Lord

The left ones in captivity

It must be observed that though all had not so much courage as to return to their own country as soon as leave was given them, they were not yet gross despisers of God, and wholly destitute of all religion.

It was indeed no light fault to remain torpid among the Babylonians when a free return was allowed them; for it was an invaluable kindness on the part of God to stretch forth His hand to the wretched exiles, who had wholly despaired of a return. Since then God was prepared to bring them home, such a favour could not have been neglected without great ingratitude. But it was yet the Lords will that some sparks of grace should continue in the hearts of some, though their zeal was not so fervid as it ought to have been. All then are not to be condemned as unfaithful, who are slothful and want vigour; but they are to be stimulated. For they who indulge their torpor act very foolishly, but at the same time they ought to be pitied, when there is not in them that desirable alacrity in devoting themselves to God which they ought to have. These men remained in exile, but did not wholly renounce the worship of God; for they sent sacred offerings, by which they professed their faith: and they also inquired what they were to do, and showed deference to the priests and prophets then at Jerusalem. It hence appears, that they were not satisfied with themselves, though they did not immediately amend what was wrong. There are many now, who, in order to exculpate themselves, or rather to wipe away (as they think) all disgrace, despise Gods word, and treat us with derision. (John Calvin.)

Religious beliefs and religious services

I. Religious beliefs that are right. There are three beliefs implied in this commission entrusted to Sherezer.

1. The efficacy of prayer. They were sent to pray before the Lord, or, as in the margin, to intreat the face of the Lord. That men can obtain by prayer to the Supreme Being what they could not obtain without it, is one of the fundamental and distinctive faiths of humanity.

2. In the intercession of saints. These men were sent to pray before the Lord, not merely for themselves but for others.

3. The special ability of some men to solve the religious questions of others. This Sherezer and Regemmelech appealed 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? They wanted a certain religious question answered, and they appealed to a certain class of religious men who they believed had the power to do so.

II. Religious services that are wrong. The Jews had performed religious services; they had fasted, they had mourned in the fifth and seventh month, even those seventy years. This was right enough so far as the form is concerned; but in spirit the service was wrong, hence here is the reproof.

1. Their services were selfish. Mark the reproof. Did ye at all fast unto Me? Was it not from selfish motives that ye did all this? Was it not with a view of obtaining My release, and securing My favour?

2. Selfish motives the Almighty had always denounced. (Homilist.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

CHAPTER VII

Some Jews being sent from those who remained at Babylon to

inquire of the priests and prophets at Jerusalem whether they

were still bound to observe those fasts which had been

appointed on occasion of the destruction of Jerusalem, and kept

during the captivity, the prophet is commanded to take this

opportunity of enforcing upon them the weightier matters of

the law, judgment and mercy, that they might not incur such

calamities as befell their fathers. He also intimates that in

their former fasts they had regarded themselves more than God;

and that they had rested too much on the performance of

external rites, although the former prophets had largely

insisted on the superior excellence of moral duties, 1-14.

NOTES ON CHAP. VII

Verse 1. The fourth year of King Darius] Two years after they began to rebuild the temple, see Zec 1:1, A.M. 3486.

The ninth month, even in Chisleu] This answers to a part of our November and December. The names of the month appear only under and after the captivity.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

It came to pass; a most usual form of speech, introductory to what shall afterwards be spoken.

In the fourth year; when the Jews had now been two years in building the temple, and probably it was in good forwardness.

Of king Darius; son of Hystaspes, about A. M, 3487, as Arch. bishop Usher in his Annals.

In Chisleu; part of our November and December, when half the time of building the temple was spent.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

1. fourth year of . . . Dariustwoyears after the previous prophecies (Zec1:1, &c.).

Chisleumeaning”torpidity,” the state in which nature is in November,answering to this month.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

And it came to pass, in the fourth year of King Darius,…. Near two years after the foundation of the temple was laid, Hag 2:10 and near two years before it was finished, Ezr 6:15 when the work was going forward, and there was a great deal of reason to believe it would be completed:

[that] the word of the Lord came unto Zechariah, in the fourth [day] of the ninth month, [even] in Chisleu: which answers to part of our October, and part of November.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

Zec 7:1-3 describe the occasion for this instructive and consolatory “word of God,” which was addressed to Zechariah in the fourth year of Darius, i.e., two years after the building of the temple was resumed, and two years before its completion, and therefore at a time when the building must have been far advanced, and the temple itself was possibly already finished in the rough. Zec 7:1. “It came to pass in the fourth year of king Darius, that the word of Jehovah came to Zechariah, on the fourth (day) of the ninth month, in Kislev.” In this definition of the time we are surprised first of all at the circumstance, that, according to the Masoretic accentuation, and the division of the verses, the statement of the time is torn into two halves, and the notice of the year is placed after , whilst that of the month does not follow till after ; and secondly, at the fact that the introduction of the occurrence which led to this word of God is appended with the imperfect c. Vav rel. ( vayyishlach ), which would then stand in the sense of the pluperfect in opposition to the rule. On these grounds we must give up the Masoretic division of the verses, and connect the notice of the month and day in Zec 7:1 with Zec 7:2, so that Zec 7:1 contains merely the general statement that in the fourth year of king Darius the word of the Lord came to Zechariah. What follows will then be appended thus: On the fourth day of the ninth month, in Kislev, Bethel sent, etc. Thus the more precise definition of the time is only given in connection with the following occurrence, because it was self-evident that the word of God which was addressed to the prophet in consequence of that event, could not have been addressed to him before it occurred. The rendering of the words in Zec 7:2 is also a disputed point. We adopt the following: Zec 7:2. “Then Bethel sent Sharezer and Regem-melech, and his people, to entreat the face of Jehovah, (Zec 7:3) to speak to the priests who were at the house of Jehovah of hosts, and to the prophets, thus: Shall I weep, abstaining in the fifth month as I have now done so many years?” As Beth – el may either signify the house of God, or be the name of the town of Bethel, it may be taken either as accus. loci, or as the subject of the sentence. Against the first explanation, which is very widely spread, viz., “it sent to the house of God, or to Bethel, Sharezer,” etc., or “they sent to the house of God Sharezer,” etc., it may be argued not only that the prophet, in order to make himself intelligible, ought either to have written ‘el Beth – ‘el , or to have placed Beth – ‘el after the object, but also that beeth-‘eel cannot be shown to have been ever applied to the temple of Jehovah, and that it would have been altogether out of place to speak of sending to Bethel, because Jehovah could not be prayed to in Bethel after the captivity. We must therefore take beth – ‘el as the subject, and understand it as denoting the population of Bethel, and not as a name given to the church of the Lord, since there are no conclusive passages to support any such use, as beth Y e hovah only is used for the church of God (see at Hos 8:1), and here there could be no inducement to employ so unusual an epithet to denote the nation. A considerable number of the earlier inhabitants of Bethel had already returned with Zerubbabel, according to Ezr 2:28 and Neh 7:32; and, according to Neh 11:31, the little town appears to have been soon rebuilt. The inhabitants of this city sent an embassy to Jerusalem, namely Sharezer and Rechem-Melech, and his men. The omission of the nota accus. has indeed been adduced as an objection to this interpretation of the names as the object, and the names have been therefore taken as the subject, and regarded as in apposition to Beth – el : “Bethel, namely Sharezer and Rechem, etc., sent;” that is to say, two men are mentioned in connection with Bethel, who are supposed to have acted as leaders of the embassy. But there is something so harsh and inflexible in the assumption of such an apposition as this, that in spite of the omission of the we prefer to regard the names as accusatives. The name Sharezer is evidently Assyrian (cf. Isa 37:38; Jer 39:3, Jer 39:13), so that the man was probably born in Babylonia.

The object of sending these men is given first of all in general terms: viz., , lit., to stroke the face of Jehovah, – an anthropomorphic expression for affectionate entreaty (see at Psa 119:58), and then defined more precisely in Zec 7:3, where it is stated that they were to inquire of the priests and prophets, i.e., through their mediation, to entreat an answer from the Lord, whether the mourning and fasting were to be still kept up in the fifth month. Through the clause the priests are described as belonging to the house of Jehovah, though not in the sense supposed by Kliefoth, namely, “because they were appointed to serve in His house along with the Levites, in the place of the first-born, who were the possession of Jehovah” (Num 3:41; Deu 10:8-9). There is no such allusion here; but the meaning is simply, “as the persons in the temple, who by virtue of their mediatorial service were able to obtain an answer from Jehovah to a question addressed to Him in prayer.” The connection with the prophets points to this. The question is defined by the inf. absol. , as consisting in weeping or lamentation connected with abstinence from food and drink, i.e., with fasting. On this use of the inf. abs., see Ewald, 280, a; , to abstain (in this connection from meat and drink), is synonymous with in Zec 7:5. : “these how many years,” for which we should say, “so many years.” Kammeh suggests the idea of an incalculably long duration. , in this and other similar combinations with numerical data, has acquired the force of an adverb: now, already (cf. Zec 1:12, and Ewald, 302, b). The subject to is the population of Bethel, by which the men had been delegated. The question, however, had reference to a subject in which the whole community was interested, and hence the answer from God is addressed to all the people (Zec 7:5). So far as the circumstances themselves are concerned, we can see from Zec 7:5 and Zec 8:19, that during the captivity the Israelites had adopted the custom of commemorating the leading incidents in the Chaldaean catastrophe by keeping fast-days in the fifth, seventh, fourth, and tenth months. In the fifth month ( Ab ), on the tent day, because, according to Jer 52:12-13, that was the day on which the temple and the city of Jerusalem were destroyed by fire in the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar, though the seventh day of that month is the date given in 2Ki 25:8-9 (see the comm. in loc.). In the seventh month, according to Jewish tradition, they fasted on the third day, on account of the murder of the governor Gedaliah, and the Judaeans who had been left in the land (2Ki 25:25-26; Jer 51:1.). In the fourth month Tammuz ) they fasted on the ninth day, on account of the conquest of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar in the eleventh year of Zedekiah (Jer 39:2; Jer 52:6-7). And lastly, in the tenth month, a fast was kept on the tenth day on account of the commencement of the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar on that day, in the ninth year of Zedekiah (2Ki 25:1 and Jer 39:1).

(Note: The later Jews kept the 9th Ab as the day when both the first and second temples were destroyed by fire; and in Mishna Taanit iv. 6, five disasters are enumerated, which had fallen upon Israel on that day: viz., (1) the determination of God not to suffer the fathers to enter the promised land; (2 and 3) the destruction of the first and second temples; (4) the conquest of the city of Bether in the time of Bar-Cochba; (5) the destruction of the holy city, which Rashi explains from Mic 3:12 and Jer 26:18, but which others refer to the fact that Turnus Rufus (either Turannius Rufus or T. Annius Rufus: cf. Schttgen, Horae hebr. et talm. ii. 953ff., and Jost, Gesch. des Judenthums, ii. 77) ploughed over the foundation of the temple. Also, on the seventeenth of the fourth month ( Tammuz), according to Mishna Taan. iv. 6, five disasters are said to have befallen Israel: (1) the breaking of the tables of the law (Exodus 32); (2) the cessation of the daily sacrifice in the first temple from the want of sacrificial lambs (cf. Jer 52:6); (3) the breach made in the city walls; (4) the burning of the law by Apostemus; and (5) the setting up of the abomination, i.e., of an idol, in the temple (Dan 11:31; Dan 12:13). Vid., Lundius, Codex talm. de jejunio, Traf. ad Rhen. 1694, p. 55ff.; also in abstract in Mishna ed. Surenhus. ii. pp. 382-3.)

The question put by the delegates referred simply to the fasting in the fifth month, in commemoration of the destruction of the temple. And now that the rebuilding of the temple was rapidly approaching completion, it appeared no longer in character to continue to keep this day, especially as the prophets had proclaimed on the part of God, that the restoration of the temple would be a sign that Jehovah had once more restored His favour to the remnant of His people. If this fast-day were given up, the others would probably be also relinquished. The question actually involved the prayer that the Lord would continue permanently to bestow upon His people the favour which He had restored to them, and not only bring to completion the restoration of the holy place, which was already begun, but accomplish generally the glorification of Israel predicted by the earlier prophets. The answer given by the Lord through Zechariah to the people refers to this, since the priests and prophets could give no information in the matter of their own accord.

The answer from the Lord divides itself into two parts, Zec 7:4-14 and ch. 8. In the first part He explains what it is that He requires of the people, and why He has been obliged to punish them with exile: in the second He promises them the restoration of His favour and the promised salvation. Each of these parts is divisible again into two sections, Zec 7:4-7 and Zec 7:8-14; Zechariah 8:1-17 and Zec 8:18-23; and each of these sections opens with the formula, “The word of Jehovah (of hosts) came to me (Zechariah), saying.”

Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament

An Enquiry Concerning Fasting; Hypocrisy Reproved.

B. C. 520.

      1 And 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;   2 When they had sent unto the house of God Sherezer and Regem-melech, and their men, to pray before the LORD,   3 And 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?   4 Then came the word of the LORD of hosts unto me, saying,   5 Speak unto all the people of the land, and to the priests, saying, When ye fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh month, even those seventy years, did ye at all fast unto me, even to me?   6 And when ye did eat, and when ye did drink, did not ye eat for yourselves, and drink for yourselves?   7 Should ye not hear the words which the LORD hath 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?

      This occasional sermon, which the prophet preached, and which is recorded in this and the next chapter, was above two years after the former, in which he gave them an account of his visions, as appears by comparing the date of this (v. 1), in the ninth month of the fourth year of Darius, with the date of that (ch. i. 1), in the eighth month of the second year of Darius; not that Zechariah was idle all that while (it is expressly said that he and Haggai continued prophesying till the temple was finished in the sixth year of Darius; Ezr 6:14; Ezr 6:15), but during that time he did not preach any sermon that was afterwards published, and left upon record, as this is. God may be honoured, his work done, and his interest served, by word of mouth as well as by writing; and by inculcating and pressing what has been taught, as well as by advancing something new. Now here we have,

      I. A case proposed concerning fasting. Some persons were sent to enquire of the priests and prophets whether they should continue to observe their yearly fasts, particularly that in the fifth month, as they had done. It is uncertain whether the case was put by those that yet remained in Babylon, who, being deprived of the benefit of the solemn feasts which God’s ordinance appointed them, made up the want by the solemn fasts which God’s providences called them to; or by those that had returned, but lived in the country, as some rather incline to think, because they are called the people of the land, v. 5. But, as to that, the answer given to the messengers of the captive Jews might be directed, not to them only, but to all the people. Observe,

      1. Who they were that came with this enquiry–Sherezer and Regem-melech, persons of some rank and figure, for they came with their men, and did not think it below them, or any disparagement to them, to be sent on this errand, but rather an addition to their honour to be, (1.) Attendants in God’s house, there to do duty and receive orders. The greatest of men are less than the least of the ordinances of Jesus Christ. (2.) Agents for God’s people, to negotiate their affairs. Men of estates, having more leisure than men of business, ought to employ their time in the service of the public, and by doing good they make themselves truly great; the messengers of the churches were the glory of Christ, 2 Cor. viii. 23.

      2. What the errand was upon which they came. They were sent perhaps not with gold and silver (as those, Zec 6:10; Zec 6:11), or, if they were, that is not mentioned, but upon the two great errands which should bring us all to the house of God, (1.) to intercede with God for his mercy. They were sent to pray before the Lord, and, some think (according to the usage then), to offer sacrifice, with which they offered up their prayers. The Jews, in captivity, prayed towards the temple (as appears Dan. vi. 10); but now that it was in a fair way to be rebuilt they sent their representatives to pray in it, remembering that God had said that his house should be called a house of prayer for all people, Isa. lvi. 7. In prayer we must set ourselves as before the Lord, must see his eye upon us and have our eye up to him. (2.) To enquire of God concerning his mind. Note, When we offer up our requests to God it must be with a readiness to receive instructions from him; for, if we turn away our ear from hearing his law, we cannot expect that our prayers should be acceptable to him. We must therefore desire to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of our life that we may enquire there (Ps. xxvii. 4), asking, not only, Lord, what wilt thou do for me? but, Lord what wilt thou have me to do?

      3. Whom they consulted. They spoke to the priests that were in the house of the Lord and to the prophets; the former were an oracle for ordinary cases, the latter for extraordinary; they were blessed with both, and would try if either could acquaint them with the mind of God in this case. Note, God having given diversities of gifts to men, and all to profit with, we should make use of all as there is occasion. They were not so wedded to the priests, their stated ministers, as to distrust the prophets, who appeared, by the gifts given them, well qualified to serve the church; nor yet were they so much enamoured with the prophets as to despise the priests, but they spoke both to the priests and to the prophets, and, in consulting both, gave glory to the God of Israel, and that one Spirit who works all in all. God might speak to them either by urim or by prophets (1 Sam. xxviii. 6), and therefore they would not neglect either. The priests and the prophets were not jealous one of another, nor had any difference among themselves; let not the people then make differences between them, but thank God they had both. The prophets did indeed reprove what was amiss in the priests, but at the same time told the people that the priest’s lips should keep knowledge, and they must enquire the law at his mouth, for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts, Mal. ii. 7. Note, Those that would know God’s mind should consult God’s ministers, and in doubtful cases ask advice of those whose special business it is to search the scriptures.

      4. What the case was which they desired satisfaction in (v. 3): Should I weep in the fifth month, separating myself, as I have done these so many years. Observe, (1.) What had been their past practice, not only during the seventy years of the captivity but to this time, which was twenty years after the liberty proclaimed them; they kept up solemn stated fasts for humiliation and prayer, which they religiously observed, according as their opportunities were, in their closets, families, or such assemblies for worship as they had. In the case here, they mention only one, that of the fifth month; but it appears, by ch. viii. 19, that they observed four anniversary fasts, one in the fourth month (June 17), in remembrance of the breaking up of the wall of Jerusalem (Jer. lii. 6), another in the fifth month (July 4), in remembrance of the burning of the temple (Jer 52:12; Jer 52:13), another in the seventh month (September 3), in remembrance of the killing of Gedaliah, which completed their dispersion, and another in the tenth month (December 10), in remembrance of the beginning of the siege of Jerusalem, 2 Kings xxv. 1. Now it was very commendable in them to keep those fasts, thus to humble themselves under those humbling providences, by which God called them to weeping and mourning, thus to accommodate themselves to their troubles, and prepare themselves for deliverance. It would likewise be a means of possessing their children betimes with a due sense of the hand of the Lord gone out against them. (2.) What was their present doubt-whether they should continue these fasts or no. The case is put as by a single person: Should I weep? But it was the case of many, and the satisfaction of one would be a satisfaction to the rest. Or perhaps many had left it off, but the querist will not be determined by the practice of others; if God will have him continue it, he will, whatever others do. His fasting is described by his weeping, separating himself. A religious fast must be solemnized, not only by abstinence, here called a separating ourselves from the ordinary lawful comforts of life, but by a godly sorrow for sin, here expressed by weeping. “Should I still keep such days to afflict the soul as I have done these so many years?” It is said (v. 5) to be seventy years, computed from the last captivity, as before, ch. i. 12. The enquiry intimates a readiness to continue it, if God so appoint, though it be a mortification to the flesh. [1.] Something is to be said for the continuance of these fasts. Fasting and praying are good work at any time, and do good; we have always both cause enough and need enough to humble ourselves before God. To throw off these fasts would be an evidence of their being too secure, and a cause of their being more so. They were still in distress, and under the tokens of God’s displeasure; and it is unwise for the patient to break off his course of physic while he is sensible of such remains of his distemper. But, [2.] There is something to be said for the letting fall of these fasts. God had changed the method of his providences concerning them, and returned in ways of mercy to them; and ought not they then to change the method of their duties? Now that the bridegroom has returned, why should the children of the bride-chamber fast? Every thing is beautiful in its season. And as to the fast of the fifth month (which is that they particularly enquire about), that, being kept in remembrance of the burning of the temple, might seem to be superseded rather than any of the other, because the temple was now in a fair way to be rebuilt. But, having long kept up this fast, they would not leave it off without advice, and without asking and knowing God’s mind in the case. Note, A good method of religious services, which we have found beneficial to ourselves and others, ought not to be altered without good reason, and therefore not without mature deliberation.

      II. An answer given to this case. It should seem that, though the question looked plausible enough, those who proposed it were not conscientious in it, for they were more concerned about the ceremony than about the substance; they seemed to boast of their fasting, and to upbraid God Almighty with it, that he had not sooner returned in mercy to them; “for we have done it these so many years.” As those, Isa. lviii. 3, Wherefore have we fasted, and thou seest not? And some think that unbelief, and distrust of the promises of God, were at the bottom of their enquiry; for, if they had given them the credit that was due to them, they needed not to doubt but that their fasts ought to be laid aside, now that the occasion of them was over. And therefore the first answer to their enquiry is a very sharp reproof of their hypocrisy, directed, not only to the people of the land, but to the priests, who had set up these fasts, and perhaps some of them were for keeping them up, to serve some purpose of their own. Let them all take notice that, whereas they thought they had made God very much their debtor by these fasts, they were much mistaken, for they were not acceptable to him, unless they had been observed in a better manner and to better purpose.

      1. What they did that was good was not done aright (v. 5): You fasted and mourned. They were not chargeable with the omission or neglect of the duty, though it was displeasing to the body (thy fasts were continually before me, Ps. l. 8), but they had not managed them aright. Note, Those that come to enquire of their duty must be willing first to be told of their faults. And those that seem zealous for the outside of a duty ought to examine themselves faithfully whether they have the regard they ought to have to the inside of it. (1.) They had not an eye to God in their fasting: Did you at all fast unto me, even to me? He appeals to their own consciences; they will witness against them that they had not been sincere in it, much more will God, who is greater than the heart and knows all things. You know very well that you did not at all fast to me; in fasting did you fast to me? There was the carcase and form of the duty, but none of the life, and soul, and power of it. Was it to me, even to me? The repetition intimates what a great deal of stress is laid upon this as the main matter, in that and other holy exercises, that they be done to God, even to him, with an eye to his word as our rule, and his glory as our end, in them, seeking to please him and to obtain his favour, and studious by the sincerity of our intention to approve ourselves to him. When this was wanting every fast was but a jest. To fast, and not fast to God, was to mock him and provoke him, and could not be pleasing to him. Those that make fasting a cloak for sin, as Jezebel’s fast, or by it make their court to men for their applause, as the Pharisees, or that rest in outward expressions of humiliation while their hearts are unhumbled, as Ahab, do they fast to God, even to him? Is this the fast that God has chosen? Isa. lviii. 5. If the solemnities of our fasting, though frequent, long, and severe, do not serve to put an edge upon devout affections, to quicken prayer, to increase godly sorrow, and to alter the temper of our minds and the course of our lives for the better, they do not at all answer the intention, and God will not accept them as performed to him, even to him. (2.) They had the same eye to themselves in their fasting that they had in their eating and drinking (v. 6): “When you did eat, and when you did drink, on other days (nay, perhaps on your fast-days, in the observation of which you could, when you saw cause, dispense with yourselves, and take a liberty to eat and drink), did you not eat for yourselves and drink for yourselves? Have you not always done as you had a mind yourselves? Why then do you now pretend a desire to know the mind of God? In your religious feasts and thanksgivings you have had no more an eye to God than in your fasts.” Or, rather, it refers to their common meals; they did no more design the honour of God in their fasting and praying than they did in their eating and drinking; but self was still the centre in which the lines of all their actions, natural, civil, and religious, met. They needed not be in such care about the continuance of their fasts, unless they had kept them better. Note, We miss our end in eating and drinking when we eat to ourselves and drink to ourselves, whereas we should eat and drink to the glory of God (1 Cor. x. 31), that our bodies may be fit to serve our souls in his service.

      2. The principal good thing they should have done was left undone (v. 7): “Should you not hear the words which the Lord has cried by the former prophets? Yes, that you should have done on your fast-days; it was not enough to weep and separate yourselves on your fast-days, in token of your sorrow for the judgments you were under, but you should have searched the scriptures of the prophets, that you might have seen what was the ground of God’s controversy with your fathers, and might have taken warning by their miseries not to tread in the steps of their iniquities. You ask, Shall we do as we have done, in fasting? No, you must do that which you have not yet done; you must repent of your sins and reform you lives. This is what we now call you to, and it is the same that the former prophets called your fathers to.” To affect them the more with the mischief that sin had done them, that they might be brought to repent of it, he puts them in mind of the former flourishing state of their country: Jerusalem was then inhabited and in prosperity, that is now desolate and in distress. The cities round about, that are now in ruins, were then inhabited too and in peace. The country likewise was very populous: Men inhabited the south of the plain, which was not at all fortified, and yet they lived safely, and which was fruitful, and so they lived plentifully. But then God by the prophets cried to them, as one in earnest, and importunate with them, to amend their ways and doings, or else their prosperity would soon be at an end. “Now,” says the prophet, “you should have taken notice of that, and have inferred that what was required of them for the preventing of the judgments, and which they did not, is required of you for the removal of the judgments; and, if you do it not, all your fasting and weeping signify nothing.” Note, The words of the later prophets agree with those of the former; and, whether people are in prosperity or adversity, they must be called upon to leave their sins and do their duty; this must still be the burden of every song.

Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary

ZECHARIAH – CHAPTER 7

THE MISSION FROM BABYLON

Verses 1-3:

The Question Of The Facts

Verse 1 establishes the time of the following events as occuring in the fourth year of king Darius of Persia, two- years after the previous prophecy, Zec 1:1; Hag 2:10-18. It was on the fourth day of the ninth Hebrew month, called Chisleu or December, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah this time, Ezr 6:14.

Verse 2 recounts that “they” of the Jewish captivity in Babylon, sent a mission or delegation to the house of the Lord in Jerusalem, headed by Sherezer and Regemmelech, to pray in the presence of the Lord, at the rebuilt altar, while the temple was being rebuilt. As Jacob went back to Bethel returned to pray, these came to the priests and Levites who led in the worship of the Lord in Jerusalem, Zec 3:7; Hos 8:1.

Verse 3 adds that this delegation was not only sent to pray but also to speak to or converse with the priests and the prophets in the house of the Lord, or reestablished order of Jewish congregational worship in Jerusalem. They asked, (each) should I, and our people yet in Babylon, continue to observe or commemorate the fifth month of our year (the month of August), as I and we have for many years past? They had arbitrarily, not by order of the Lord, instituted a fast day in commemoration of the destruction of Jerusalem, Jer 52:12-14. Their day had become a mere formal style. after more than 70 years, and they seemed to want to be released from keeping it, but respectfully desired sanction of the priests and prophets in the congregation in Jerusalem, Joe 2:16.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

There is no vision here, but the answer which Zechariah was commanded to give to the messengers of the captives: for he says that some had been sent from Chaldea to offer sacrifices to God, and at the same time to inquire whether the fast, which they had appointed when the city was taken and destroyed, was to be observed. But there is some ambiguity in the words of the Prophet, for it is doubtful whether the two whom he names, even Sherezer and Regem-melech, together with the others, had sent the messengers of whom mention is made, or they themselves came and brought the message from the captives. But this is a matter of no great moment. As to the question itself, I am disposed to adopt their view, who think that these two came with their associates to Jerusalem, and in the name of them all inquired respecting the fast, as we shall hereafter see. (68) The Jews think that these were Persian princes; but this opinion is frivolous. They are thus accustomed to draw whatever occurs to the glory of their own nation without any discretion or judgment, as though it had been an object much desired by the Jews, that two Persian should go up to the temple. But there is no need here of a long discussion; for if we regard the Prophet’s design, we may easily conclude that these were Jews who had been sent by the exiles, both to offer gifts and to inquire about the fast, as the Prophet tells us. The sum of the whole then is, that Sherezer and Regem-melech, and their companions, came to the temple, and that they also asked counsel of the priests and Prophets, whether the fast of the fifth month was still to be observed.

It must first be observed, that though all had not so much courage as to return to their own country as soon as leave was given them, they were not yet gross despisers of God, and wholly destitute of all religion. It was indeed no light fault to remain torpid among the Babylonians when a free return was allowed them; for it was an invaluable kindness on the part of God to stretch forth his hand to the wretched exiles, who had wholly despaired of a return. Since then God was prepared to bring them home, such a favor could not have been neglected without great ingratitude. But it was yet the Lord’s will that some sparks of grace should continue in the hearts of some, though their zeal was not so fervid as it ought to have been. The same sloth we see in the present day to be in many, who continue in the filth of Popery; and yet they groan there, and the Lord preserves them, so that they do not shake off every concern for religion, nor do they wholly fall away. All then are not to be condemned as unfaithful, who are slothful and want vigor; but they are to be stimulated. For they who indulge their torpor act very foolishly; but at the same time they ought to be pitied, when there is not in them that desirable alacrity in devoting themselves to God, which they ought to have. Such an instance then we see in the captives, who ought to have immediately prepared themselves for the journey, when a permission was given them by the edicts of Cyrus and Darius. They however remained in exile, but did not wholly renounce the worship of God; for they sent sacred offerings, by which they professed their faith; and they also inquired what they were to do, and showed deference to the priests and Prophets then at Jerusalem. It hence appears, that they were not satisfied with themselves, though they did not immediately amend what was wrong. There are many now, who, in order to exculpate themselves, or rather to wipe away (as they think) all disgrace, despise God’s word, and treat us with derision; nay, they devise crimes with which they charge us, with the view of vilifying the word of the Lord in the estimation of the simple. But the Prophet shows that the captives of whom he speaks, though not so courageous as they ought to have been were yet true servants of God; for they sent sacrifices to the temple, and also wished to hear and to learn what they were to do.

(68) Grotius, Newcome, and others adopt this view; but Blayney justly says that [ בית-אל ] is nowhere used in Scripture for the temple; and therefore he, in accordance with the Septuagint for the temple; and therefore it as the name of the city so called, and situated in the tribe of Benjamin. So Drusius, Henderson, and others. Then the true version of the whole passage, and the most literal, would be the following:—

 

2. When Bethel sent Sherezer and Regem-melech and its men to entreat the face of Jehovah, and to speak to the priests who were

3. over the house of Jehovah of hosts, and to the prophets, saying, “Shall I weep in the fifth month, separating myself as I have done

4. these so many years?” then came the word of Jehovah of hosts to

5. me, saying, “Speak to all the people of the land, and to the priests, saying,”—

“

When ye fasted and mourned in the fifth and in the seventh, even

6. these seventy years, fasting did ye fast to me, even to me? and when ye ate and when ye drank, were not ye yourselves the eaters

7. and ye yourselves the drinkers? Were not these the words which Jehovah proclaimed by the former Prophets, when Jehovah was inhabited and peacable, and her cities around her, and when the south and the plain were inhabited?”

“

Bethel” here means the town; and therefore “its,” and not “his men,” is the proper version; and instead of “Shall I weep,” the most suitable rendering would be, “Shall we weep.” That the inhabitants of Judea are intended, and not messengers from Babylon, is quite evident from the fifth verse, “Speak to all the people of the land.” — Ed.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

FASTING CAPTIVES TURNED INTO FEASTING CONQUERORS

Zec 7:1 to Zec 10:12.

IN the fourth year of king Darius * * in the fourth day of the ninth month * * Zechariah received another Word from the Lord. It was in consequence of a visit of representative men from the captivity. Sherezer, prefect of the treasury, and Regemmelech, the kings official, and associates, came to pray before the Lord, and to speak unto the priests which were in the House of the Lord of Hosts, and to the Prophets, saying, (for Israel) Should I weep in the fifth month, separating myself, as I have done these so many years?

You will remember that back in Deu 17:9 it is made the business of the priests and Levites to determine matters of law,the sentence being

And thou shalt come unto the priests the Levites, and unto the judge that shall he in those days, and enquire; and they shall shew thee the sentence of judgment:

And thou shalt do according to the sentence, which they of that place which the Lord shall choose shall shew thee; and thou shalt observe to do according to all that they inform thee (Deu 17:9-10).

The letter of the Law was known to these men, and proceeding according to its suggestion they raised this question of the fasts.

The tenth day of the fifth month was kept a fast in memory of the destruction of Jerusalem. Jeremiah says,

Now in the fifth month, in the tenth day of the month, which was the nineteenth year of Nebuchadneezar king of Babylon, came Nebuzar-adan, captain of the guard, which served the king of Babylon, into Jerusalem,

And burned the House of the Lord, and the kings house; and all the houses of Jerusalem, and all the houses of the great men, burned he with fire:

And all the army of the Chaldeans, that were with the captain of the guard, brake down all the walls of Jerusalem round about.

Then Nebuzar-adan the captain of the guard carried away captive certain of the poor of the people, and the residue of the people that remained in the city, and those that fell away, that fell to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the multitude (Jer 32:12-15).

But the Temple is now being restored. In view of this blessing from above, they wonder whether the fast which had commemorated the sad event should be continued. The greater portion of the seventh and eighth chapters of Zechariah are in answer to this question.

But let me speak a word before giving ourselves to further study. Be it understood that there are fasts and fasts: fasts that are meaningless; and fasts that are full of meaning: fasts that deny the body but infill the Spirit; and fasts that profit neither body nor spirit. If one is to take a large view of the subject of fasts, he must collate the Scriptures relating to it, and then he will find that there is a fast appointed of God, associated with prayer, and from which blessing always comes; from the experience of which men have always received power. Jesus fasted and prayed. Jesus declared with reference to the disposition of the boy at the foot of the mount of transfiguration, that His disciples had failed because they were not living in the atmosphere of fasting and prayer,the atmosphere of power. Days set apart by direction of a ruler for fasting and prayer, or days that came in commemoration of some sad event, are almost sure, in the process of time, to descend into a mere ceremony. But when the individual is led by the Spirit of God to do the same, or when the Church finds itself ready for ten days in the upper room; or a nation, realizing its doom, sits in sackcloth and ashes, as did Nineveh, then God will visit that man, the Holy Spirit will descend upon that church, and the Eternal One will repent the evil He thought to do that nation, and judgment will give place to mercy.

But the question of this committee involves

THE FORMAL FAST

Hear what God has to say concerning it. First of all He affirms:

It was selfishly rendered!

Speak unto all the people of the land, and to the priests, saying, When ye fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh month, even those seventy years, did ye at all fast unto Me, even to Me?

And when ye did eat, and when ye did drink, did not ye eat for yourselves, and drink for yourselves? (Zec 7:5-6).

One can hardly read these words of Zechariah without being reminded of the way Lenten season is kept by certain of our own country. Church members, who are also society leaders, are often heard to express their pleasure in its near approach. It will give them a chance to rest awhile from the dance, the theater, the card-table, and so far recuperate themselves, body and mind, that when the season is over they can enter upon it all again with increased zest; and yet they call their Lenten-behavior Christianity.

Dr. Herrick, in his volume Some Heretics of Yesterday speaks of Savonarolas time as a period in which Art achieved its more brilliant triumphs and religion fell into its dreariest formalisms. But as to the formalism, the fifteenth century-professors of religion find kith and kin in twentieth century ceremonialists.

This fast was also associated with commercial sins. Evidently from verses nine and ten they had come to regard fast-keeping as in lieu of true judgment, kindness, compassion. As far back as Isaiahs time God had found this to be true, and by the mouth of that Prophet He makes His apostate people to say,

Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and Thou seest not? wherefore have we afflicted our soul, and Thou takest no knowledge? Behold, in the day of your fast ye find pleasure, and exact all your labours.

Behold, ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness: ye shall not fast as ye do this day, to make your voice to be heard on high.

Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? is it to bow down His head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? wilt thou call this a fast, and cm acceptable day to the Lord?

Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?

Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?

Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the Lord shall be thy rereward.

Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer; thou shalt cry, and He shall say, Here I am. If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and speaking vanity:

And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noon day:

And the Lord shall guide thee continually (Isa 58:3-11).

Recently one of our religious newspapers reported an instance of a well-to-do deacon in Connecticut, whose pastor said, Poor widow Greens wood is out; can you take her a cord? Yes, answered the deacon, but who will pay me for it? I will pay you for it, said the pastor, on condition you will read the first three verses of the forty-first Psalm before you retire tonight.

The deacon consented, delivered the wood, and at night opened the Word of God and read,

Blessed is he that considereth the poor: the Lord will deliver him in time of trouble.

The Lord will preserve him, and keep him alive; and he shall be blessed upon the earth: and Thou wilt not deliver him unto the will of his enemies.

The Lord will strengthen him upon the bed of languishing: Thou wilt make all his bed in his sickness? (Psa 41:1-3).

When, afterwards, the pastor asked him for his bill, the deacon replied, No bill for you. I cant afford to part with those promises. I didnt know they were there.

So it would seem the people of Zechariahs time had forgotten the promises God had associated with true judgment, kindness, compassion, and had also forgotten the curse against them that oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, the poor, or devise evil in the heart against ones brother.

Their fasts did not save them from unfaithfulness.

But they refused to hearken, and pulled away the shoulder, and stopped their ears, that they should not hear.

Yea, they made their Hearts as an adamant stone, lest they should hear the Law, and the Words which the Lord of Hosts hath sent in His Spirit by the former Prophets: therefore came a great wrath from the Lord of Hosts (Zec 7:11-12).

A dull ear, a shrinking shoulder, a heart of stone; what a picture of apostasy! You will remember that when Stephen had addressed the Jews concerning Jesus they were cut to the heart. They cried out, with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and rushed upon him with one accord. Their fathers before them had stopped their ears and, with one accord, rushed away from God. They had withdrawn their shoulders from His service as the untamed ox draws away from yoke and bow. They had made their hearts as hard as the stones with which their successors slew Stephen.

A dull ear, an unwilling shoulder, a hard heart; how often these go together! How surely up-to-date is this description! How shall we be saved from this awful estate? A dull ear, an unwilling shoulder, a hard heart; who of us has not found himself cursed with one, or all of these? How shall he correct it?

Mark Guy Pearse found a man who talked to him on the subject of holiness, saying, I do wish I could find it. Find it! Pearse replied. You mean find Him. When you have Jesus you will have holiness. Ah, yes, and when we find Him we find our hearing. When we find Him we find willing shoulders. When we find Him we find hearts of flesh! If we are to overcome we must open the heart and let the King come in, that He may convert the barren place into a paradise, beautiful and fruitful.

THE FINISHED TEMPLE

The Prophet passes from the subject of Fasts to the finishing of the Temple. God declares His jealousy for Zion; His purpose to return unto her and dwell in the midst of Jerusalem.

The Temple is Gods dwelling-place. In Solomons day the Lord said of the Temple built with hands, I have hallowed this House, which thou hast built, to put My Name there for ever; and Mine eyes and Mine heart shall be there perpetually (1Ki 9:3). And when Jesus came and preached the great truth that God was to be worshiped wherever man sought Him in spirit, He did not abolish temple-residence; for now believers are the temple of the Most High. When God came into that ancient Temple made with hands His presence was manifested, and it was a glorious day for Israel when the Shekinah glory was seen above the Ark of the Covenant. When that Presence was taken from them, Zion was desolate indeed. It is impossible for the Gentile convert to know what it means to hear the promise, I am returned unto Zion, and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem. And yet, it meant much the same to Israel that the re-visitation of Gods Spirit is to a soul which has long been out of communion, or to a Church, long barren.

We have prayed the prayer of David,Restore unto [us] the joy of Thy salvation; and uphold [us] with Thy free spirit, and watched with eagerness for Gods answer, but not more eagerly than these ancient people watched for the re-appearance of the Shekinah glory. To get their House erected and have Jehovah come into it, that indeed was among their highest hopes. Should it not be so with us? Jesus went into one house where a sick woman lay and took her by the hand and lifted her up, and in health she entered upon service. Jesus went into another house where one was palsied, and lo, at His word, the powers came again. Jesus went into the house of Jairus, and a little daughter lay dead, but when Jesus came she revived, and bereavement took wings. Oh, beloved, our palaces, and our peasant cottages, alike, are finished temples when there the Divine Presence is revealed, and God,our Goddwells in the midst!

It is a pledge of a contented people also.

Thus saith the Lord of Hosts; There shall yet old men and old women dwell in the streets of Jerusalem, and every man with his staff in his hand for very age.

And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in the streets thereof (Zec 8:4-5).

What a picture that! To the Jew, long captive and oppressed, it seemed impossible of realization. It sounded like idealization. The first commandment, with promise, was Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee (Exo 20:12).

How much they appreciated that promise is shown by their punctilious keeping of the command. No people ever regarded the multiplication of merry children as did this ancient folk. In the days of their captivity oppression had cut them short in the midst of their years, and so far discouraged marriage that children seemed few, and the very loneliness of their national life was strikingly presented in that fact. When their city had been over-run by the hordes from Babylon they had seen the sucklings slain in the streets and those of better growth go to untimely graves. And in the memory of it was both barrenness and anguish.

Pusey tells us,In the dreadful Irish famine of 1847, the absence of the children from the streets of Galway was one of its dreariest features. And yet the Irish never loved their children as deeply as did the Jew, nor lost them so completely. No wonder they thought it too marvelous to be true when Gods Prophet drew for them a picture of old men, in very multitudes, leaning upon their staffs, and little children in crowds making the streets to ring with merry laughter. And they could not understand it until God promised,I will save My people from the east country, and from the west country; and I will bring them, and they shall dwell in the midst of Jerusalem: and they shall be My people, and I will be their God.

Truly, as George Adam Smith said, That oracle had its motive in Zechariahs day. But what an oracle for these times of ours! Whether in the large cities of the Old World where so few of the workers may hope for a quiet old age, sitting in the sun, and the childrens days of play are shortened by a premature toil and knowledge of evil; or in the newest fringes of the Western World where mens hardness and coarseness are, in the struggle for gold, unawed by reverence for age, and unsoftened by the fellowship of childhood,Zechariahs great promise is equally needed. Even there shall it be fulfilled if men will remember the conditions, that truth and whole-hearted justice abound in the gates, with love and loyalty in every heart towards every other.

Again, this finished Temple was

A promise of prosperity. According to Zechariah, when there was no Temple, There was no hire for man, nor any hire for beast; neither was there any peace to him that went out or came in because of the affliction: for I set all men every one against his neighbour (Zec 8:10).

That is what it is to be without a Temple. Show me a people who have no temple of worship, no altar at which the family bows, no house in which the church gathers, to worship Jehovah, and I will show you a people stricken with poverty, as in China; oppressed by the adversary, as in India; and set every one against his neighbor, as in Africa; but when the temple comes, how changed! For the seed shall be prosperous; the vine shall give her fruit, and the ground shall give her increase, and the heavens shall give their dew (Zec 8:12).

Christianity has accentuated commerce and increased riches as no other force ever could have accomplished these things. Wherever the Temple of God has gone there the vine has yielded its fruit and the ground its increase; Godliness is profitable * * [for] the life that now is.

Poor Silverberg, the accomplished Minneapolis crook, who has robbed, gambled and stolen fortune upon fortune, confesses now, as he lies on his hard couch in prison cell, had he behaved himself righteously and worked as hard to build up the business his father left him as he has in devising new methods of rascality he would be worth millions. No one doubts it! Put this over against his pitiful plea for the small amount of money that would release him from the cell and remember that he pleads for this small sum in vain, and learn that godliness is profitable in the individual life.

Yes, and the nation finds the same to be true. Why is it that America is so blessed? Fifty years ago we had but seven billion dollars in this country; today we are worth conservatively, a few hundred billion; then our per capita wealth was $307.00; in 1900 it was $1235.00;more than four times as much. Now, in spite of the depression, it is larger still. If you ask me What is the secret of this? I cannot agree with him who says, The stretch of our territory and the richness of our soil. The Temple of God answers this question. Take Christianity out of America and you will pauperize her. The continent does not exist that is wide enough, the soil has not yet been discovered upon which an apostate, and utterly wicked population, can prosper. Give your temples such prominence that the Blind Pig and its accursed associates in sin,the low theater, the brothel, the gambling den, the corporate devices for fortune-stealing and fortune-destruction are abolished, and you will bring in a period of such material prosperity as Isaiah describes in Isa 35:1The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose.

Ah, men; let us never begrudge what we give to the erection and maintenance of the temple of God; for, as we give to it there shall be given unto us, good measure shaken together, heaped up, running over.

THE FATHERS FEASTS

There remains, however, another portion of this Scripture which completes the subject suggested by this study, namely, The Captives Fast Changed to the Conquerors Feasts.

Thus saith the Lord of Hosts; The fast of the fourth month, and the fast of the fifth and the fast of the Seventh, and the fast of the tenth, shall be to the House of Judah joy and gladness, and cheerful feasts; therefore love the truth and peace (Zec 8:19).

In other words, the anniversary of the taking of Jerusalem, the anniversary of the burning of the Temple, the anniversary of the murder of Gedeliah and his friends; all these dark hours of their past were to become, through the touch of God, shining stars by which to direct their feet.

He, by His own presence, would convert the fasts into feasts. Why did the siege against Jerusalem succeed? Why did the walls of Jerusalem fall? Why was the Temple in Jerusalem burned? Why were Gods people carried away captive? Because they had put God away from them; and when their day of battle came they were without Him who had always been their defense. They understood all of this. It was to symbolize it all that they kept their fasts; and now, if He is to return, of course those fasts must become feasts!

Do you not recall how, when Jesus was asked,

Why do the disciples of John fast often, and make prayers, and likewise the disciples of the Pharisees; but Thine eat and drink?

He answered,

Can ye make the children of the bridechamber fast, while the Bridegroom is with them?

But the days will come, when the Bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then shall they fast in those days (Luk 5:33-35).

The time for fasting is when Gods face is hid; but when it is seen, what a feast is on! Then one will appreciate that his joy is greater because of the sorrow which he has endured; his strength is more mighty because of the weakness with which he contrasts it; his sky is clearer because of the awful darkness of the night now passed.

F. B. Meyer, commenting on this promise of the coming feast, born out of the sad fast, says, Dare to anticipate the far-off interest of tears; dare to live in the day which is after tomorrow; as Dante said, In Gods will is our peace, He loves us infinitely. No good thing will He withhold; He must lay deep in tears the foundation that shall upbear our eternal weight of glory.

Thus hath He done, and shall we not adore Him?This shall He do, and can we still despair?Come, let us quickly fling ourselves before HimCast at His feet the burden of our care.

The favor of such a Father will be sought by nations from afar.

Thus saith the Lord of Hosts; It shall yet come to pass, that there shall come people, and the inhabitants of many cities:

And the inhabitants of one city shall go to another, saying, Let us go speedily to pray before the Lord, and to seek the Lord of Hosts: I will go also.

Yea, many people and strong nations shall come to seek the Lord of Hosts in Jerusalem, and to pray before the Lord (Zec 8:20-22).

There is an earnest of the fulfillment of this prophecy in the New Testament Church. Gods people were never evangelists until Jesus ascended up on high, and the Holy Spirit descended upon His disciples; then, suddenly, within the short limits of a single century they swept the world in the Name of the Lord.

Within eighty years after Pentecost, Clement of Alexandria remarked concerning Christianity, The Word of our Teacher abode not in Judea alone, as philosophy in Greece, but was poured out throughout the whole world, persuading Greeks and Barbarians in their several nations and villages, and in every city whole houses, and each hearer individually; and having brought over to the truth no few, even of the very philosophers.

Tertullian, before the second century closes, writes, We are a people of yesterday, and yet we have filled every place belonging to you,cities, islands, castles, towns, assemblies, your very camp, your tribes, companies, palace, senate, forum; we leave you your temples only. We can count your armies; our numbers in a single province will be greater.

And yet, beloved, this prophecy is only partially fulfilled. There is a day coming when nations that knew not God shall run unto Him because of the Holy One of Israel.

Then shall His favored people find popularity.

In those days it shall come to pass, that ten men shall take hold out of all languages of the nations, even shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We will go with you: for we have heard that God is with you (Zec 8:23).

The tenth chapter of this Book is a declaration of the same precious truth. Jehovah has promised rain for the latter times. When once His people have been won back from the teraphim, the false diviners and dreamers, and their evil shepherds have been punished, then we read in Zec 10:3-4:

For the Lord of Hosts hath visited His flock the House of Judah, and hath made them as His goodly horse in the battle.

Out of him came forth the corner, out of him the nail, out of him the battle bow, out of him every oppressor together.

That corner stone is Christ, to be born in Judahs line; He is also the nail in the sure place, Conqueror and Ruler. The people of whom He is born shall be as mighty men, treading down their enemies in the mire of the streets because Jehovah is with them. His promise is,

And I will strengthen the Home of Judah, and I will save the House of Joseph, and I will bring them again to place them; for I have mercy upon them: and they shall be as though I had not cast them off: for I am the Lord their God, and will hear them.

And they of Ephraim shall be like a mighty man, and their heart shall rejoice as through wine: yea, their children shall see it, and be glad; their Heart shall rejoice in the Lord (Zec 10:6-7).

The world is full of Jew-baiting now; the world will be full of Jew-bidding then. God had a plan of the ages! He has not made the Jew a perpetual miracle without occasion. He has not preserved this nation intact for forty centuries for nothing. He has not scattered them among all people without a final purpose.

Some writer has said, Empires are cast away as a shadow, leaving behind them only their names. They have perished and their places know them no more. But the Jews are still there, standing apart from all other races, as in the days of Jesus Christ, one distinct and unique family, in the midst of the confusion of all others,rich, though a thousand times despoiled; increasing in numbers, and more united than ever, though scattered by a tempest of eighteen centuries.

The Jew is everywhere! He is all over China; he is all over India; he is in the heart of Africa; he is in the far south-land of Abyssinia; he treads the cold snows of Siberia; not a city without his colonies; and scarce a village but knows the individual. What does God mean? He tells us,

I will hiss for them, and gather them; for I have redeemed them: and they shall increase as they have increased.

And I will sow them among the people: and they shall remember Me in far countries; and they shall live with their children, and turn again.

I will bring them again also out of the land of Egypt, and gather them out of Assyria; and I will bring them into the land of Gilead and Lebanon; and place shall not be found for them (Zec 10:8-10).

Zechariah beholds the day when these people, who once rejected Jesus, shall learn their mistake and shall look on Him whom they have pierced, and shall mourn because of Him. And Zechariah beholds the day when they, being saved by turning to their Messiah, shall flash forth as Evangelists of the Gospel of the Son of God. Then the world will receive ten thousand times ten thousand such men as were Peterthe Jew, Johnthe Jew, and Paul the Jew, as preachers of the Gospel of the Son of God. These Evangelists will, every man of them bring up his tens from the ends of the earth to the acknowledgment of Christ the King, for they will be strengthened in Jehovah and will walk up and down in His Name.

O then that I

Might live, and see the olive bear

Her proper branches, which now lie

Scattered each were,

And without root and sap decay,

Cast by the husbandman away,

And sure it is not far!

Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley

CRITICAL NOTES.] The Didactic part. Replies to questions relative to fasts observed by the Jews, but which they supposed no longer binding after restoration to prosperity. Fourth] Two years, nearly, after the foundation of the temple was laid (Hag. 2:10-18), and nearly two years before it was finished. Chisleu] Corresponding with part of November and part of December. The end of B. C. 518 [Pusey].

Zec. 7:2. House of God] here a rendering for Bethel. Unto] A word for which there is no corresponding Hebrew. Bethel is construed by most as nominative to the verb, and the translation given, When Bethel (i.e. the inhabitants of that city) sent Sherezer and Regem-melech, and their men as an embassy to Jerusalem. Pray] Lit. to entreat the face of, i.e. to seek and conciliate the favour of Jehovah, to obtain a Divine answer to their inquiry.

Zec. 7:3. Weep] They fasted and mourned in captivity, on account of the ruins of the temple. Why fast now when the city and temple are being restored? Separating] by vow of consecration, sanctifying oneself by separating from defilement and food, as in solemn fast (cf. Joe. 2:16).

Zec. 7:4. Word] of reproof for the method and spirit in which they fasted.

Zec. 7:5. All] The answer given not only to those who put the question, but to the people at large. Fasted] in fifth month in remembrance of the burning of the temple; in seventh to commemorate the murder of Gedaliah the son of Ahikam. To me] Fasting alien from God and for selfish ends.

Zec. 7:6. Did] ye not eat and drink in self-indulgence? Neither in feasting nor fasting had they any regard for Jehovah; all was done for self-interest.

Zec. 7:7. Words] of former prophets threatened a curse upon hypocrisy and disobedience, when Jerusalem was inhabited and prosperous. The lessons of former teachers had been verified in the nations history; they should heed the warning.

HOMILETICS

PAST WARNINGS AND PRESENT JUDGMENTS.Zec. 7:7

The former prophets taught the worthlessness of fasting, when God was forgotten and the weightier matters of the law disregarded. If the Jews had listened to the messages, the evils which they were suffering would not have come upon them. Belief that fasting could obtain the favour of God overthrew the nation. Hence take warning

I. Israel had been warned in the past. The Lord hath cried by the former prophets. God declares his will loudly and sufficiently in his word, but men disregard the trumpet-call.

1. Warned by various messengers. Zechariah was not the first prophet; they had been warned by every prophet whom Jehovah had sent.

2. Warned in different periods. Warnings were not only addressed to them in adversity, when men should consider, but in prosperity, when they should humble themselves before God to save themselves from the punishment of pride and rebellion; when Jerusalem was inhabited in prosperity. God tells us beforehand, arranges one over against another, that we may rightly chose and have no excuse for our sin (Ecc. 7:14).

II. If past warnings had been regarded present punishment might have been avoided. Should ye not hear the words? Should men disregard the Scriptures and have no concern for their own salvation and the interests of the nation? Too often the admonitions of ministers are disregarded by those flushed with prosperity. The Jews before and after the captivity failed to learn from their fathers, and had to mourn for their country. Study the past, if you would divine the future [Confucius].

ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 7

Zec. 7:1-6. God or selfWhich? A certain king had a minstrel, and he bade him play before him. It was a day of high feasting; the cups were flowing, and many great guests were assembled. The minstrel laid his fingers among the strings of his harp, and woke them all to the sweetest melody, but the hymn was to the glory of himself. It was a celebration of the exploits of song which the bard had himself performed. He had excelled high Howells harp, and emulated great Llewellyns lay. In high-sounding strains he sang of himself and all his glories. When the feast was over, the harper said to the monarch, Oh king, give me my guerdon; let the minstrels mede be paid. And the king said, Thou hast sung unto thyself; pay thyself: thine own praises were thy theme; be thyself the paymaster. He cried, Did I not sing sweetly? O king, give me the gold! But the king replied, So much the worse for thy pride that thou shouldst lavish such sweetness upon thyself. If a man should grow grey-headed in the performance of good works, yet when at last it is known that he has done it all to himself, his Lord will say, Thou hast done well enough in the eyes of man, but so much the worse, because thou didst it only to thyself, that thine own praises might be sung, and that thine own name might be extolled. [Spurgeon].

Zec. 7:7. Not hear. There is a story which tells of a bell which was suspended upon a rock of the ocean dangerous to navigation. The waves of the ocean beating upon it caused it to give a noise of warning to keep off the approaching mariner. It is said that at one time some pirates destroyed the bell to prevent the warning. Not long after these very pirates struck upon this rock and were lost. How many hush or remove the voice of warning from the point of danger, who as soon as the warning ceases founder upon the rock of temptation and are lost for ever [MeCosh].

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

CHAPTER XXXVI

TEACHING ABOUT WORSHIP

Chapter seven has been called A Call to Civic Duty. We cannot subscribe to this summary of the prophetic message contained in this chapter, but we mention it to underscore a truth which shines through both chapters seven and eight, namely that outward formal religious observances unrelated to present life are an affront to God. His promises are to those whose relationship to Him makes a real difference in their relationship to their fellowmen.

QUESTIONS ABOUT FASTING . . . Zec. 7:1-3

RV . . . And it came to pass in the fourth year of king Darius, that the word of Jehovah came unto Zechariah in the fourth day of the ninth month, even in Chislev. Now they of Beth-el had sent Sharezer and Regem-melech, and their men, to entreat the favor of Jehovah, and to speak unto the priests of the house of Jehovah of hosts, and to the prophets, saying, Should I weep in the fifth month, separating myself, as I have done these many years?

LXX . . . And it came to pass in the fourth year of Darius the king, that the word of the Lord came to Zacharias on the fourth day of the ninth month, which is Chaseleu. And Sarasar and Arbeseer the king and his men sent to Baethel, and that to propitiate the Lord, speaking to to the priests that were in the house of the Lord Almighty, and to the prophets, saying, The holy offering has come in hither in the fifth month, as it has done already many years.

COMMENTS

On December 4, 518 B.C., just over two years after the beginning of Zechariahs prophetic ministry, the Jews who lived in Beth-el sent two envoys, Sharezer and Regem-melech, to inquire of the priests of Jehovah concerning the continuation of the fasts which for seventy years had commemorated the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple.
Beth-el is located east of an imaginary line running north from Jerusalem to Nablus.
Beth-els ruins were discovered by Robinson and are now identified with the village of Betin. Formerly inhabited by Canaanite kings, it became home to a number of Jews following the captivity. In Zechariahs day, as in the time of the pre-exilic divided kingdom, Beth-el lay just south of the border that divided Judea and Israel. In New Testament days the boundary between Judea and Samaria ran south of the village. This has led some to the erroneous conclusion that Zechariahs visitors were Samaritans, while in point of fact they were Jews returned from Babylon. They had settled in the northernmost part of what was originally the land of Benjamin and they had come to Jerusalem for instruction concerning the requirements of worship on the part of the returnees.

(Zec. 7:3) The question asked is, Should I weep in the fifth month, separating myself as I have these so many years? The concern is for the facts which related to the captivity.

In the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month, which marked the nineteenth anniversary of Nebuchadnezzars ascending the throne of Babylon, he sent his servant to Jerusalem to burn the temple and main buildings of the city.
In the seventh month, apparently of the same year, a member of the Babylonian royal family had assassinated the Jewish governor, Gedaliah, of Judah, and the Jews who were with him.
In memory of those two tragic events the Jews had fasted twice a year on the days marking their occurrence. It had been a burdensome experience for a people in captivity. The people of Beth-el now want to know if it is required to continue the practice.

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

VII.
THE INQUIRY CONCERNING THE CONTINUED OBSERVANCE OF THE FASTS.

(1) Fourth year . . . This was in B.C. 518, the second year after the commencement of the re-building of the Temple, and about two years before its completion.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

Occasion of the prophetic utterance, Zec 7:1-3.

1. Fourth year 518 B.C. (compare Zec 1:1; see on Hag 1:1).

The ninth month See on Hag 2:10, and Hastings’s Dictionary of the Bible, article “Time.” The last date mentioned (Zec 1:7) was nearly two years earlier. In this same month two years before Haggai had delivered two messages of promise (Hag 2:10-23). The order of the words and the construction in Hebrew are peculiar; therefore many are inclined to omit 1b as a later addition and to connect 1a with Zec 7:2 so as to read, “And it came to pass in the fourth year of Darius that Beth-el sent.”

Zec 7:2-3 describe the occasion which called forth the utterance. The translation of Zec 7:2 is uncertain; R.V. reads, “Now they of Beth-el had sent Sharezer and Regem-melech, and their men, to entreat the favor of Jehovah.” Beth-el (R.V.), though meaning house of God (A.V.; compare Gen 28:19) does not seem to be used of the temple. The form as well as the context require that it should be taken as the name of the well-known town and sanctuary of the northern kingdom, about ten miles north of Jerusalem (see on Amo 4:4), to which some exiles had returned (Ezr 2:1; Ezr 2:28). But is it in the nominative or in the accusative (of direction)? Should it be translated “Beth-el sent,” or “he sent to Beth-el”? The latter is improbable, for why should anyone send to Beth-el in the postexilic period, when Jerusalem was the only recognized religious center? If the text is correct Beth-el must be taken as the subject in the sense of men of Beth-el (so R.V.). If so, “Sharezer and Regem-melech” would be the object; the community in Beth-el sent these two men. Then the phrase “his men” (English versions read incorrectly the plural their) becomes peculiar, for the singular pronoun refers ordinarily to only one individual. This difficulty was evidently felt by the Revisers, for they place in the margin as an alternative, “Now they of Beth-el, even Sharezer, had sent Regem-melech and his men.” This may be a more accurate reproduction of the Hebrew, but Sharezer sounds peculiar in apposition to they of Beth-el. Hence some have thought that in the two words Beth-el and Sharezer (Isa 37:38) we have a corruption of what was originally a single proper name, perhaps Belsharezer, which is identical with Belshazzar (Dan 5:1). Then Belsharezer would be the sender of Regem-melech. The former may have been some prominent citizen or official it has been suggested, though with little probability, that he is no other than Zerubbabel who, as the representative of the community, sought the advice of the prophets and priests. Others seek to remove the difficulty by taking Beth-el as the subject, Sharezer as the object, and Regem-melech not as a proper name but as an official title. “Now they of Beth-el sent Sharezer, the Regem-melech (friend of the king), and his men.” The title is found nowhere else. The present text, no matter how it is translated, presents difficulties. If it is emended the change to “Belsharezer sent Regem-melech and his men” is the most simple. Perhaps all we can say with certainty is that a delegation was sent from somewhere to consult the religious leaders, and that the coming of this delegation was the occasion of the prophet’s utterance.

The purpose of the sending of the emissaries was twofold: (1) To entreat the favor of Jehovah (R.V.) Literally, to stroke the face of Jehovah, and thus make him favorably inclined. The metaphor seems to have originated at a time when it was customary to stroke or embrace the image of the deity to secure the divine favor. In the general sense of entreat the favor of God or man by presents, petitions, or other means the verb is used quite commonly in the Old Testament. (2)

Speak unto the priests to the prophets Speak to is used in the sense of consult. It would seem that the two classes of religious workers possessed at this time equal authority, and that there was peace and good will between them. There is no indication of the opposition which was so prominent in the eighth century, and which appears again in the days of Malachi.

Should I weep in the fifth month No matter who was the sender, the question was asked in the name of the community (see Zec 7:5). The fifth month was called Ab, on the tenth day of that month the city and temple were given up to the flames (Jer 52:12-13; but compare 2Ki 25:8-9). In commemoration of this terrible calamity a public fast and mourning was held annually by the later Jews on the ninth of Ab. As the new temple approached completion, many would ask themselves whether this fast and mourning should be continued.

Separating myself Abstaining from meat and drink (Zec 7:5).

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF MORAL AND CEREMONIAL REQUIREMENTS, Zec 7:1 to Zec 8:23.

After a silence of nearly two years the voice of Zechariah was heard again. In the fourth year of Darius a deputation came to the prophet inquiring whether the observance of the fasts instituted to commemorate the destruction of Jerusalem was still obligatory (Zec 7:1-3). This question would suggest itself to many as the temple neared completion, and as the seventy years since the destruction of Jerusalem were drawing to a close. In reply the prophet points out that fasting is not an end in itself, that it is of value only as a means of increasing devotion and piety in the one who practices it (4-6). Then he turns the attention of the delegation to the ethical character of the divine demands, and points out that by disregarding these their fathers had brought upon themselves awful judgments (7-14). Reaffirming Jehovah’s jealousy for Zion, he pictures the glory and prosperity in store for Judah and Jerusalem (Zec 8:1-17). When these glories are realized the question of fasts will solve itself; they will be transformed into seasons of joy and rejoicing, to which multitudes will flock from all parts of the land; even the other nations will gladly join the Jews in their festivities (18-23).

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Questions About Fasting ( Zec 7:1-6 ).

There may be a contrast intended here between those who had come from Babylon seeking news about the Branch, bringing gold and silver for his crown, who had had the joy of participating in a prophetic acting out of His crowning, and these people who had come from Bethel (or Babylon) simply concerned as to whether they needed to keep on fasting now that the Temple was nearly built.

The first revealed hearts of faith and hope, the second were self-seeking aggrandisement and self-saisfaction. However, in both cases the promise is given that a new Temple will be built (Zec 6:12; Zec 8:3; Zec 8:9), both are called on to hear the voice of God and obey it (Zec 6:15; Zec 7:8-14; Zec 8:16), both have in mind the the return of exiles and the nations coming to Zion to participate in the blessings of the new age (Zec 6:13; Zec 6:15; Zec 8:3-8; Zec 8:20-23). God does not limit His blessing to the wholly worthy.

Zec 7:1

‘And it happened in the fourth year of King Darius that the word of YHWH came to Zechariah on the fourth day of the ninth month, even in Chislev.’

The timing of this incident is precisely dated in order to stress the historicity of the event. Chislev is the Babylonian name for the ninth month. King Darius was the king of Persia.

Zec 7:2-3

‘Now Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regemmelech and their men to entreat the favour of YHWH, and to speak to the priests of the house of YHWH of Hosts and to the prophets –.’

Here the emphasis appears to be on the fact that the query has come from Bethel, which had been where one of the two Northern altars had been built. There may be an intended play on the fact that Bethel means ‘house of God’. Those of ‘the house of God’ came to the house of YHWH to entreat favour from YHWH and to seek guidance from the priests and prophets, thus exalting the house of YHWH. For now the altar at Bethel was no more. It would seem from their purpose in coming that religious questions were being tightly controlled.

Note the mention of ‘priests — and prophets.’ These were clearly connected to the house of YHWH in order to give guidance to the people. The fact that Zechariah replies might suggest that he was at this stage an official prophet (compare Zec 11:12).

Alternately we may translate ‘they had sent Bethel-Sharezer and Regem-Melech —’. The idea might then be that they had come from those in exile to enquire at the house of YHWH. The names are suggestive of Babylonian names and it would explain why the question comes four months after the feast, the time taken to travel to Jerusalem. However the reply ‘to all the people of the land’ (Zec 7:4) would tie in with the question having come from Bethel.

Zec 7:3

‘Saying, “Should I weep in the fifth month, separating myself as I have done these so many years?”

Their question was as to whether it was still necessary to weep on the fifth month for the destruction of the Temple in view of the fact that the Temple was being rebuilt, for this particular fast commemorated the burning of the Temple (2Ki 25:8 on; Jer 52:12 on). So their concern is lest this fast be no longer necessary in view of the work on the rebuilding of the Temple. But the reply given suggests that they see in this weeping something that is of particular merit to themselves as it stresses how faithful they have been through so many years. Instead of being sorrowful for sin while they are fasting they are rather proud of their punctilious observance of the fast and of the grief that they express.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Further Prophecies of Zechariah ( Zec 7:1 to Zec 8:23 )

These prophecies occur approximately two years after the previous ones demonstrating that Zechariah’s ministry continued. It would appear that the Temple is at least partly built and functioning.

ANALYSIS OF THE SECOND SECTION.

This second section (Zec 7:1 to Zec 8:23) divides up as follows:

Introduction (Zec 7:1-3).

‘Then came the word of the LORD of Hosts to me saying —’ (Zec 7:4).

‘And the word of the LORD came to Zechariah saying —’ (Zec 7:8).

‘And the word of the LORD of Hosts came saying —’ (Zec 8:1).

‘And the word of the LORD of Hosts came to me saying –’ (Zec 8:18).

IN DEPTH ANALYSIS OF Zechariah 7-8.

a Introduction – the arrival of enquirers about the fasts which were in remembrance of the circumstances connected with the fall of Jerusalem (Zec 7:1-3).

a YHWH dismisses their fasts as hypocritical and calls on them to hear the words of the prophets (Zec 7:4-7).

b YHWH calls on them rather to live truly with a genuine concern for people’s needs, and not to overlook the fact that it was because their fathers failed to hear the prophets and do this that the land had become desolate (Zec 7:8-14).

b YHWH declares His deep concern for Jerusalem. He will return and live in Jerusalem, and Jerusalem will be called the city of truth and its mountain the Holy Mountain (compareIsa 2:1-4). It will be filled with people dwelling securely and He will bring back the exiles. And because His Temple has been rebuilt they will live in peace and prosper for He now purposes to do good for Jerusalem as long as they live truly with a genuine concern for people’s needs and are open and honest with each other (Zec 8:1-17).

a YHWH declares that the fasts of the past will become feasts of joy, and the nations will flock to Jerusalem to entreat God’s favour because they know that He is with His people (Zec 8:18-23).

Note how in ‘a’ questions are raised about the fasts and God condemns their keeping of them as hypocritical, and in the parallel the fasts will become feasts and will result in blessing for the nations. In ‘b’ the call is to live truly with a genuine concern for people’s need, reminding them that the failure to do this had brought desolation, and in the parallel the call is to live truly with a genuine concern for people’s needs, and then everything will be restored.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Zec 7:1  And 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;

Zec 7:1 Comments – It is generally agreed that the second year of Darius is 520 B.C. His fourth year would be around 517-518 B.C.

Zec 7:7  Should ye not hear the words which the LORD hath 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?

Zec 7:7 “Should ye not hear the words which the LORD hath cried by the former prophets” Scripture References – Note:

Isa 58:3-7, “Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not? wherefore have we afflicted our soul, and thou takest no knowledge? Behold, in the day of your fast ye find pleasure, and exact all your labours. Behold, ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness: ye shall not fast as ye do this day, to make your voice to be heard on high. Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the LORD? Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?”

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

The Question Proposed

v. 1. And It came to pass in the fourth year of King Darius, in the year 518 B. C. that the word of the Lord, by special inspiration, came unto Zecharlah in the fourth day of the ninth month, even in Chisleu, corresponding roughly to our December,

v. 2. when they had sent unto the house of God Sherezer and Regem-melech and their men to pray before the Lord, rather, Bethel, that is, the citizens of this city, sent Sherezer and Regem-melech, the first one evidently having been born in exile and bearing a Chaldean name, with their men, to entreat Jehovah, literally, “to conciliate by caresses,”

v. 3. and to speak unto the priests which were in the house of the Lord of hosts, who were on duty, although the Temple was not yet finished, and to the prophets, also servants of the true God in the more specific sense, saying, Should I weep in the fifth month, observing a special fast in commemoration of the taking of the city of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, separating myself, abstaining from food, as I have done these so many years? for this fast had become a custom during the captivity, and now that the Jews were once more living in Palestine, was being observed throughout the country. For this reason the question was of practical importance for all the Jews, both at home and abroad.

v. 4. Then came the word of the Lord of hosts unto me, saying,

v. 5. Speak unto all the people of the land and to the priests, His message concerning them all, saying, When ye fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh month, the latter observation being in memory of the murder of Gedaliah, Cf Jeremiah 41, even those seventy years, during the entire captivity, did ye at all fast unto Me, even to Me? Had it really been done in His honor, for the purpose of serving Him, or was it a work performed in a sense of selfishness, to foster the spirit of resentment and revenge?

v. 6. And when ye did eat, and when ye did drink, did not ye eat for yourselves and drink for yourselves? Both their fasting and their feasting, so the Lord reminds them, was conducted without regard to Him, simply for the gratification of their own ideas.

v. 7. Should ye not hear the words which the Lord hath cried by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and in prosperity and the cities thereof round about her, the suburbs dependent upon the capital, when men inhabited the south, the semiarid section of Judah toward the south-east, and the plain, the lowlands toward the southwest? They should have been familiar with the messages of the prophets before the exile, which time and again emphasized the need of a true worship of the heart, of sincere repentance and faith. The fasting in itself is a matter of indifference to the Lord. The fasting which is well-pleasing to God does not primarily consist in abstaining from food, but in one’s observing the Word of the Lord and living in accordance with it at all times, as the prophets have ever preached.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

EXPOSITION

Verse 1-8:23

Part II. THE ANSWER TO A QUESTION CONCERNING THE OBSERVANCE OF CERTAIN FASTS.

Zec 7:1-3

1. A deputation comes from Bethel to ask whether a fast instituted in memory of the calamity of Jerusalem was still to be observed.

Zec 7:1

In the fourth year of King Darius. This happened, then, B.C. 518, nearly two years after the visions had occurred (Zec 1:7). In two years more the temple was finished (Ezr 6:15), and the work of rebuilding was now proceeding vigorously; it seemed a fit opportunity for inquiring whether, in this period of comparative prosperity and success, it behoved the people to continue the fast appointed in sadder times. The word of the Lord came. This is the usual formula for introducing a revelation (Zec 1:1), but it is here placed in a peculiar position, dividing the date into two parts. Keil connects the last clause, which gives the day of the month, with the next verse; but this is against the traditional accentuation, and is not required by the wording of Zec 7:2. The prophet first gives the date generally when the word came to him, and then defines it more accurately. Chisleu; Chislev (Neh 1:1). This month corresponded to parts of November and December.

Zec 7:2

When they had sent unto the house of God. The Vulgate supports this version, Et miserunt ad domum Dei; the LXX. gives, , “And Sarasar and Arbescer the king and his men sent to Bethel”which is far from clear. But the temple is never called Beth-el, while a mission to the town Bethel would be unmeaning. So “Bethel” is to be taken as the subject of the sentence, thus: “Now Bethel (i.e. they of Bethel) sent.” The persons named may be taken either as the deputation or as the persons meant by “they of Bethel.” The former seems most likely to be intended. The Bethelites sent these men to Jerusalem to make the inquiry. The exiles returned each to his own city, as we read in Ezra it.; among them were many people of Bethel (Ezr 2:28; Neh 7:32), which town they rebuilt (Neh 11:31). They seem to have tacitly acquiesced in the spiritual supremacy of Jerusalem, notwithstanding the associations Connected with their own city. Sherezer. The names of the deputies are Assyrian; they seem to have retained them on their return. Sherezer, equivalent to Assyrian Sar-usur or Asur-sar-usur, “Asur protect the King,” is the name borne by a sen of Sennacherib (2Ki 19:37). Regem-melech; “Friend of the King.” The first half of the word is probably Assyrian. And their men. Certain persons associated with them in the business. To pray before the Lord; literally, to stroke the face of the Lord (Zec 8:21, Zec 8:22; Exo 32:11); so Latin, mulcere caput. Hence it means, “to entreat the favour of God” for their city. This was one object of their mission. The other purpose is mentioned in the next verse.

Zec 7:3

The priests. They were addressed as interpreters of the Law (see Hag 2:11, and note there). Which were in; rather, which belonged to. The prophets. Such as Zechariah, Haggai, and perhaps Malachi, through whom God communicated his will. Should I weep in the fifth month? The use of the first person singular to express a community or a people is not uncommon; here it means the Bethelites (comp. Num 20:18, Num 20:19; Jos 9:7; 1Sa 5:10, 1Sa 5:11). Weeping is the accompaniment of fasting (Jdg 20:26; Neh 1:4; Joe 2:12). This fast in the fifth month, the month of Ab, had been established in memory of the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. The temple was burnt on the ninth or tenth of the month (see 2Ki 25:8, 2Ki 25:9; Jer 52:12, Jer 52:13). The only fast-day enjoined by the Law of Moses was the great Day of Atonement on the tenth day of the seventh month, Ethanim (Le 23:26, etc.). But the Jews added others in memory of certain national events (see Jdg 20:26; 1Sa 7:6; Isa 58:3, etc.). In Zec 8:19 mention is made of four extraordinary fasts instituted and observed during the Captivity, viz. on the ninth day of the fourth month, in memory of the capture of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans; in the fifth month, in remembrance of the burning of the temple and city; in the seventh month, in consequence of the murder of Gedaliah (Jer 41:1, Jer 41:2); and in the tenth month, in memory of the commencement of the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar (see note on Zec 8:19). Separating myself. Abstaining from food and pleasure. Vulgate, vel sanctificare me debeo, such separation or abstinence being regarded as a consecration to the Lord. The LXX. has not understood the passage, rendering, “The sanctification hath come in here in the fifth month.” These so many years. All the seventy years of exile. There is, perhaps, some Pharisaical complacency in this assertion.

Zec 7:4-7

2. In answer to the inquiry, the delegates are told that fasting is in itself an indifferent thing, but is to be estimated by the conduct of those who observe it.

Zec 7:4

Then came the word of the Lord. This formula marks the several portions of the answer to the inquiry (see Zec 7:8; Zec 8:1, Zec 8:18). The present verse takes up the sentence in Zec 7:1, interrupted by the explanation of the object of the deputation (Zec 7:2, Zec 7:3).

Zec 7:5

Unto all the people of the land. The message was not for Bethel only, but for all the restored Jews, for whose satisfaction the question had been asked. And to the priests. The prophet was to make known to the priests God’s will in this matter, it not being a mere ritual question. Fifth month (see note on Zec 7:3). The original question referred only to this fast; the answer embraces also another fast appointed by human authority. The seventh month. This fast was instituted in consequence of the murder of Gedaliah, B.C. 587, just seventy years ago, when the greater part of the remnant of the Jews, contrary to the prophet’s warning, fled into Egypt to escape the punishment of the crime (2Ki 25:25, 2Ki 25:26; Jer 41:2, Jer 41:16, etc.). Did ye at all fast unto me? It was not by God’s command, or to do him honor, that they fasted; not from hearty repentance or sorrow for the sins which had brought ruin upon their city and country; but from vexation at the calamity itself, and in a self-righteous spirit, with some idea of gaining merit by this punishment of the body; and God was not constrained by this formal observance to show them favour. Even to me. (For the forcible repetition of the pronoun, comp. Gen 27:34; Pro 22:19; Hag 1:4.)

Zec 7:6

When ye did eat, etc.; better, when ye eat and when ye drink. As in your fasts, so in your rejoicings and your daily life. Did not ye eat for yourselves, etc.? literally, Is it not ye who are eating and ye who are drinking? There the matter ends; it is self that is concerned, and there is no reference to God.

Zec 7:7

Should ye not hear the words, etc.? A verb must be supplied. “Do ye not know the words?” or “Should ye not obey the words?” Syriac, Septuagint, and Vulgate, “Are not these the words?” By the former prophets (Zec 1:4). 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 attend to the cultivation of moral obedience and purity (see 1Sa 15:22; Pro 21:3; Isa 1:11, Isa 1:12, Isa 1:16, Isa 1:17; Isa 58:3, etc.; Jer 7:22, Jer 7:23; Hos 6:6; Mic 6:8, where see note). When Jerusalem was inhabited. Before its destruction and the deportation of its inhabitants. He recalls the former prosperity to their memory, contrasting it with the present low estate, to remind them of all they had lost in punishment of disobedience. The south (Negeb). The southern part of Judaea was so called (see on Oba 1:19; and comp. Num 13:17; Jos 15:21). The plain (Shephelah); the low land, along the coast of the Mediterranean (Jos 15:33; 1 Macc. 12:38). The above districts comprise two of the three divisions of Judaea (Jdg 1:9); the third, the mountain or hill country (Luk 1:39), is intended in the expression, “Jerusalem and the cities round about her.” There was still a great dearth of population in the country, and the towns were not half inhabited, nor was the]and half cultivated.

Zec 7:8-14

8. The people are further reminded that they had been disobedient in old time, and had been punished by exile.

Zec 7:8

Unto Zechariah. The prophet speaks of himself in the third person, as in Zec 1:1. A further explanation of God’s answer is next given. Some critics suppose that this verse is an interpolation, and that Zec 1:9, Zec 1:10 are “the words” referred to in Zec 1:7.

Zec 7:9

Thus speaketh; thus saith. The Lord hath always so said, and saith so now. Revised Version, thus hath the Lord of hosts spoken, saying. Execute true judgment; literally, judge ye judgment of truth; i.e. judge according to truth without bias or partiality. The same phrase occurs in Eze 18:8. Exhortations to this effect are often found; e.g. Exo 23:6, etc.; Deu 24:14; Isa 1:17; Jer 7:5-7; Jer 22:3. Show mercy. Kindness and love in general. Compassions. Pity for the afflicted.

Zec 7:10

Oppress not the widow, etc. (Exo 22:21, Exo 22:22; Deu 10:18, Deu 10:19); Vulgate, nolite calumniari, where calumniari is used in the sense “to vex, torment.” Imagine evil against his brother in year heart. God’s Law forbids even a thought of revenge or injury against a neighbour, for this is only the first step to wrong doing (comp. Mic 2:1). Septuagint, , “Let none of you remember in your hearts the malice of your brother.”

Zec 7:11

Pulled away the shoulder; they gave a stubborn, refractory shoulder, like an ox which refuses to have the yoke put on his neck, or draws hack when it feels the weight (Neh 9:29; Hos 4:16). Stopped their ears. Made their ears heavy. ; Isa 6:10; Isa 59:1. Three degrees of obduracy are named in this verse: they refused to listen; they resisted the warners; they exhibited open contempt for them. The full climax is given in the next verse.

Zec 7:12

They made their hearts as an adamant stone. They made their hearts as hard as a stone which could receive no cutting or engraving; no message from God could find entrance; and this from their wilful obstinacy. The word rendered “adamant,” shamir, probably means “diamond,” a stone so hard, says Jerome, as to break all metals to pieces, but to be itself broken by none; hence it is called adamas, “unconquerable.” Ezekiel (Eze 3:9) notes that it is harder than flint (comp. Jer 17:1). The LXX; paraphrasing, gives. , “They set their heart disobedient.” The Law. The various enactments of the Mosaic system. In his Spirit; rather, by his Spirit. The leaching which the Spirit of God inspired the prophets to deliver (comp. Neh 9:30; 2Ki 17:13; Mic 3:8). And for the succession of prophets from Solomon to the Captivity, see note on Amo 2:11; and to those there enumerated, add Iddo, Shemaiah, Hanani, Micaiah, Huldah.

Zec 7:13

As he cried. As the Lord called to them by the prophets. Just retri-button fell upon them (Pro 1:24, etc.; Isa 65:12, Isa 65:13; Isa 66:4). So they cried, and I would not hear; rather, so they shall cry, and I will not hear. God will be deaf to their cry, and will give them up to their own ways (Jer 2:28). In the protasis Jehovah is spoken of in the third person, in the apodosis he speaks in the first.

Zec 7:14

I scattered them; I will scatter them. What had happened in the past is a sign of what shall befall them in the future in punishment of like obduracy. The form of the sentence denotes that God is recounting what he had said to the people in past time; hence it is best to translate the verbs in the future tense. Scattered them with a whirlwind; Septuagint, , “I will cast them out;” Vulgate, dispersi eos (comp. Job 27:21; Amo 1:14). Nations whom they knew not. This is the usual phrase for people of strange tongue (Deu 28:33; Jer 16:13). Thus the land was desolate. This was the result of God’s threatenings. Some make the words of Jehovah continue to “nor returned,” but the punctuation is against them. After them; i.e. after they were carried away in captivity. No man passed through nor returned. No one went to and froa picture of extreme desolation (comp. Isa 33:8; Jer 9:12; and for the phrase, see Zec 9:8; Eze 35:7). For they laid the pleasant land desolate. The pronoun refers to the disobedient Jews, their sin being the cause of the desolation; or the verb may be taken impersonally, “So the pleasant land was made desolate.” “The pleasant land” is literally, “the land of desire.” Septuagint, (Psa 106:24; Jer 3:19).

HOMILETICS

Zec 7:1-7

Hypocrisy unmasked.

“And it came to pass in the fourth year of King Darius, that the word of the Lord came unto Zechariah,” etc. In the latter half of the last chapter we were told of an embassy to Jerusalem, which met with acceptance and honour. In the present passage we read of another, which meets with just the opposite treatment. The question asked by these messengers is not answered at all in this chapter. Not only so, those who ask it are indirectly rebuked for so doing. Why this remarkable difference of behaviour? Not in the surface, but in the sub-surface, view of affairs. So we will now try to point out

I. THE SURFACE VIEW. At first sight what can appear more thoroughly deserving of approval than the inquiry here mentioned? This so, whether we consider:

1. Its object. What the men desire, apparently, is simply to know God’s willa desire which we find, in so many other cases, so very warmly approved (Act 2:37; Act 9:6; Act 16:30; Luk 3:10, etc.).

2. Or its subject. They would learn God’s will as to “fasting,” i.e. as to one department of the proper worship of God. What, apparently, more proper and right (comp. Psa 116:12; Mic 6:6, Mic 6:7; and contrast Num 15:30; 1Ki 12:33; Col 2:18, Col 2:23)?

3. Or its method; viz. that of going to God’s “house” (verses 2, 3), and consulting his regular teachers, the “priests” (Le Zec 10:11; 2Ch 15:3; Hag 2:11; Mal 2:7), and his occasional and extraordinary teachers, the “prophets” (Jer 7:25; Jer 25:4, etc.).

4. Or its special occasion. Seventy years, as predicted (Jer 25:11), having now elapsed since that burning of the temple on the tenth day of the fifth month (Jer 52:13), in commemoration of which this fast of the fifth month had been instituted; and the renewed building of the temple, commenced in the second of Darius (Ezr 4:24; Ezr 5:1, Ezr 5:2), having now (in this fourth of Darius, see verse 1) so far advanced that the priers could live in it (see verse 3), what more natural and apparently opportune than this inquiry about the propriety of observing this fast any longer (comp. Dan 9:1-3)?

5. Or its special channel, so to describe it. How peculiarly befitting, to all appearance, the particular messengers sent! And that, whether we understand them (with some) to be persons sent by the inhabitants of “Bethel” (translated in our version, “the house of God,” in verse 2); a place so long and notoriously connected with idol worship and the contempt of God’s will (see 1Ki 12:32, 1Ki 12:33; 2Ki 17:28; Amo 7:13); or whether, with others, judging from the Assyrian turn of their names, we suppose that they were Jews of the Captivity come up in person to make inquiry. In either case, such an inquiry, from such persons, seems eminently deserving of praiseat first sight.

II. THE SUB–SURFACE VIEW. Nevertheless, in all this same “fasting,” about which they inquire, this Scripture, when further examined, shows us that their conduct had been only deserving of blame. This true, inasmuch as their conduct, during all that time, had been:

1. Never wholly in the right. “Fasting” is only valuable as an outward sign of repentance; but their repentance, during all “those seventy years” (verse 5), had never been true repentance, i.e. “repentance toward God.” Note, “Did ye at all fast unto me, even to me?” in verse 5; and comp. Act 20:21; also the “sorrow ” of 2Co 7:10, and the sorrow of David (Psa 51:4) and the prodigal (Luk 15:18), for the evil of sin, with the sorrow of Saul (1Sa 15:30), apparently for its consequences alone.

2. Always eminently in the wrong. Their solicitude, when engaged in their fastings, had not really been about God’s pleasure and will: but it had been, and that most thoroughly, concerning their own; as much so, in fact, as when, at other times, they had eaten and drunk (2Co 7:6). So completely, we see, in some cases, may mere abstinence from food be one of the “sins of the flesh” (comp Mat 6:16 and Isa 58:3-7),

3. Always inexcusably in the wrong.

(1) For having sinned thus against light. Long ago and often (see beginning of 2Co 7:7) God’s “prophets” had warned their fathers against thus drawing nigh unto him with their lips only (Isa 29:13); and they had the remembrance and the record of this as their guide.

(2) For having sinned thus against experience. When these prophets had so spoken all was happy and bright, “Jerusalem” and the “cities round about” “inhabited” fully and in “prosperity,” as also at that time, even those comparatively barren and country districts, “the south and the plain.” How awfully different their condition during “those seventy years”! How loudly, therefore, their own experience, and, as it were, their own land itself, had admonished them! And yet how entirely in vain!

May not all this illustrate, further, for our own admonition?

1. The exceeding deceitfulness of formalism. All God’s people (they speak as one man in 2Co 7:3), and even, apparently, all God’s ministers (the “priests,” 2Co 7:5), being deceived thereby, in this instance, to so great an extent, and for so many years, and in such circumstances of trial (comp. Joh 18:28 with Joh 12:10, “Lazarus also;” and Mat 27:4, Mat 27:6),

2. The exceeding penetration of God‘s Word. Unmasking thus, and making plain, and bringing to light all these deeply hidden deceits (comp. Heb 4:12, Heb 4:13; also Luk 12:2; Mat 9:4; 1Co 14:25; Psa 50:21, end; Psa 90:8). How easy, in short, to deceive ourselves! How impossible to mock God (see Gal 6:7)!

Zec 7:8-14

Hypocrisy warned.

“And the word of the Lord came unto Zechariah, saying, Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts,” etc. The severe rebuke of the previous verses seems followed up in these verses by a very solemn yet very merciful warning, intended apparently to save the Jews from the various evils to which their hypocrisy had exposed them. The language of God to their fathers, as referred to in verse 7, appears still (note “thus spake,” according to Pusey, Wardlaw, and others, in verse 9) the theme of discourse. And three successive points of importance, in connection with this language and its consequences, seem described to us here, viz.

(1) a most gracious purpose;

(2) a stubborn refusal; and

(3) a terrible doom.

I. A MOST GRACIOUS PURPOSE. What was it really that, by the “former prophets” (verse 7), God had demanded of men? Under one aspect, as before shown by us, “repentance towards” himself. Under another aspect, so it seems hem explained in verses 9, 10, only what was good for themselves. How many blessings, e.g; if God’s laws had been really kept, and their fathers had only done as God asked of them, would have been found in the land! We may describe them as being chiefly four, viz.

(1) perfect and universal fairness of dealing;

(2) perfect kindness and generosity of dealing, as in brotherly love;

(3) special and peculiar kindness of dealing to those (“the stranger,” etc.) needing it most; and

(4) total absence, in any cause whatever, of ill will in the heart. Could anything have been better? So true is it (Rom 7:12), that “the Law” is not only “holy,” or worthy of God; and “just,” or fair in its requirements; but “good,” also, or kind in its object, and intended, in fact, for men’s highest benefit.

II. A STUBBORN REFUSAL. How had this message of goodness and mercy been received in the days referred to?

1. With every outward sign of dishonour. Such as

(1) marked indifference, “refusing to hearken” (comp. Isa 30:9-11);

(2) open aversion, “pulling away the shoulder,” as though saying, when special effort was made to gain their attention, “I am giving attention to something else;” and

(3) utter contempt, “stopping their ears,” as much as to say, “I had rather hear nothing than listen to you” (comp. Act 22:22).

2. With every inward feeling of rebellion to correspond. This shown:

(1) By their dread of its power. Notwithstanding their extreme unwillingness to hear, something of the meaning of God’s gracious message would reach their understandings. Even if so, if they could help it, it should not penetrate to their consciences. So well were they aware of its power (see the words in verse 12, “As an adamant stone, lest [in this sense] they should hear”). What a testimony on their part! What a precaution!

(2) By their defiance of its authority. How many, as here implied, its claims to reverential submission! As being essentially a “law,” or command; as containing “words” of command from the “Lord of hosts” himself, whom so many obeyed; as being his command in so express a manner, because delivered by messengers known to be appointed and inspired by himself (see, again, verse 12). All this in addition to the fact above noted of its being a message for “good.” Yet to all this their unconquerable, i.e. “adamant,” obstinacy refused to submit.

III. A TERRIBLE DOOM. When such condescending goodness met with so perverse a return, what could ultimately ensue but “great wrath “? According to the moral laws of God’s spiritual kingdom, which are as fixed, could we only believe it, as the natural laws of his physical creation, here was a clear case of cause and effect. This is declared to us:

1. By the nature of the judgments. See how they correspond to the offence. Israel had refused to hear God. So God now refuses to hear the.

2. By the sentence of the Judge. God speaks of all that afterwards came upon them as being inflicted

(1) by his authority (“I scattered them,” etc.;

(2) on their account (“The land was made desolate after them”); and even,

(3) in a certain sense, by the instrumentality of their transgressions (“They laid the land desolate;” comp. also Hos 13:9; Mal 1:9).

From this review of that portion of the past history of Israel here referred to, we get a sample of many other histories as they will appear at the last. This is true:

1. Of many individual lives. Lifelong entreaty, lifelong forbearance, lifelong rebellion, followed up by more than lifelong death, impossible as that sounds,such will be in brief, and yet in full also, the history of many a soul.

2. Of many individual communities; both nations and Churches. How many cities, kingdoms, empires, and races, once great on the earth, might have all that is really essential to their history told in a precisely similar way (see, for one example, Gen 13:13; Gen 18:20, Gen 18:21; Gen 19:9; 2Pe 2:8; Jud 7)! See a succession of examples in the succession of world empires in Daniel. See, also, as to religious communities, similar lessons taught by comparison of past and present condition of some of the Apocalyptic Churches.

3. Of the whole world of the ungodly. What a long history of gracious messages and of stubborn refusals will be found at the end of the whole completed history of the race of Adam and Eve (Rom 3:19, end; Jud Rom 1:14, Rom 1:15)!

HOMILIES BY W. FORSYTH

Zec 7:1-14

God and men.

I. THE UNITY OF GOD‘S PURPOSE. God’s thoughts do not vary, though he varies his methods. His end for nations and individuals is always the sameadvancement, not merely in knowledge and culture, but in moral goodness.

II. THE MERCIFULNESS OF GOD‘S WARNINGS. At no time hath God left himself without wirelesses. By word and providence and in countless ways his warnings come. We see this in the past. (Zec 7:7, “former prophets.”) So in the prosper. Every mercy has a voice calling for thankfulness. Every chastisement has a summons to moral thoughtfulness and prayer. There is no excuse for continuance in sin.

III. THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD‘S JUDGMENTS. Persistence in transgression must bring punishment. God’s laws fulfil themselves. Every rejection of God’s counsels, every refusal of God’s offers, every slighting of God’s love, works for evil, blinding, hardening, alienating, bringing dire ruin nearer. Judgment is God’s strange work, but it must come. “The pleasant land laid desolate.”F.

Zec 7:3

Shall we fast?

This question has been often asked down to our own day.

I. There are NATIONAL FASTS. These are rare, and only appointed under very solemn circumstances. In 1853, when cholera prevailed, the Presbytery of Edinburgh (Church of Scotland) suggested to Lord Palmerston, then Home Secretary, the propriety of ordering a national fast. His lordship, in his reply, recommended observance of natural laws rather than fasting. If this were attended to, all would be well. Otherwise pestilence would come, “in spite of all the prayers and lastings of a united but inactive nation.“ He does not seem to have understood that the two things were quite compatible. Prayer and inaction is folly; but prayer and action is the highest wisdom. Surely there is something grand and beautiful in a whole nation bowed in humility and supplication before the Most High. (Buckle, vol. 2, has a characteristic notice of this, where he falls into the odd mistake that in Scotland “fasting” meant abstinence from food!)

II. Then there are CHURCH FASTS. These are only binding on the members of the several Churches that appoint them. In Scotland it has for long been customary to have fast days in connection with the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper; but as to this there is now a change. First their enforcement under penalties ceased; then the rigour of their observance was given up; then, from the necessities of modern life, and the knowledge that they were often the occasion of more evil than good, they have come in ninny cases to be discontinued. The question is one of Christian expediency, and requires to be dealt with both with wisdom and gentleness.

III. Besides these there is PRIVATE FASTING. As to this, no rule can be laid down (cf. Rom 14:5, Rom 14:6). But certain principles should be kept in view, such as that fasting has no virtue in itself; that what may be good for one Christian may not suit another; and that the great end of all such observances is spiritual good, “room to deny ourselves,” a path “to bring us daily nearer God.”F.

Zec 7:7

God’s education of the people.

I. THE MORAL RELATIONSHIP OF THE PEOPLE. We are not absolutely separate existences. Related through birth, custom, association, and in other ways, we are connected, we are parts of one great whole. Hence in a large degree we are what others have made us. This must be taken into account as a factor in life.

II. THE CONTINUOUS SPIRITUAL EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. The past speaks to us as well as the present. We learn from the dead as well as the living. Above all, we have the Bible. It is God’s book, for it is man’s book. In it God speaks to us. Shows us what be was, and therefore what he is; what he has done, and therefore what he will do. Reveals the laws and principles of government, and thus makes manifest his will, and that the only way to reach our true destiny is by loving and doing his will.

III. THE GROWING RESPONSIBILITY OF THE PEOPLE. Increased knowledge. Larger experience. Grander opportunities. More may be learned, and therefore ought to be learned. Better lives may be lived, and therefore ought to be lived. Greater things may be done for the good of others and for the advancement of the cause and kingdom of the Lord, and therefore greater things ought to be done. Privilege is the measure of responsibility.F.

Zec 7:11

The history of ungodliness.

I. GERM. The question isSelf or God, our own will or God’s will. Must be settled. Pressed by prophet after prophet. The answer shows the state of the heart. “Refused to hear.”

II. PROGRESS. There is growth in evil, as in good Stages. “First the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear.”

1. Wilful refusal. “Pulled away the shoulder.” Sinners will not submit to be guided by the higher will. Angry and fretted, they will not bow to God’s yoke.

2. Insolent rejection. “Stopped their ears.” Warnings and counsels are in vain. Pride rises to insolence. Refusal, to determined opposition and rebellion.

3. Settled obduracy. (Zec 7:12.) This implies a steady process. The bad is more and more gaining the mastery. Every fresh victory brings the time nearer when the evil becomes “unconquerable” (Greek adhamas).

III. CONSUMMATION. (Zec 7:13.) The end is come.

1. Ruined character.

2. Blasted life.

3. Hopeless future.

Oh! where is that mysterious bourne,

By which our path is crossed,

Beyond which God himself hath sworn

That he who goes is lost?

“How far may we go on in sin?

How long will God forbear?

Where does hope end, and where begin

The confines of despair?

“An answer from the skies is sent,

‘Ye that from God depart,

While it is called today, repent,

And harden not your heart.'”
(Alexander.)

F.

HOMILIES BY D. THOMAS

Zec 7:1-7

Religious beliefs that are right; religious services that are wrong.

“And it came to pass in the fourth year,” etc. The preceding visions and symbolic actions recorded in this book occurred, we are informed, in the eighth month of the second year of King Darius. What is here recorded appears to have taken place in the ninth month of the fourth year of that king’s reignabout two years later. The ninth month is here called Chisleu, and corresponds with the latter part of November and the first part of December. What was the prophet doing during these two years? We hear nothing of him, although we doubt not he was busy in his prophetic labours. Indeed, we are informed in the Book of Ezra (Ezr 6:14) that the elders of the Jews builded, and they prospered through the prophecy of Haggai the prophet, and Zechariah the son of Iddo. Their prophetic words stimulated the activities and prompted the efforts of the builders. Here is an account of a commission composed of two men, called Sherezer and Regem-melech, distinguished personages, no doubt, still remaining in Babylon, sent as envoys to the house of God, that is, the temple at Jerusalem; and their work there was “to pray before the Lord, and to speak unto the priests.” It would be well, perhaps, to give Dr. Henderson’s translation of these two verses; and his translation agrees with that of Keil: “And it came to pass in the fourth year of Darius the king, that the word of Jehovah was communicated to Zechariah on the fourth day of the ninth month, which is Chislev, when Babel sent Sherezer Regemelech and his men to conciliate the regard of Jehovah.” Looking at these words homiletically, they present two subjects for thoughtreligious beliefs that are right, and religious services that are wrong.

I. RELIGIOUS BELIEFS THAT ARE RIGHT. There are three beliefs implied in this commission entrusted to Sherezer. What are they?

1. The efficacy of prayer. They were sent “to pray before the Lord,” or, as in the margin, “to entreat the face of the Lord.” That men can obtain by prayer to the Supreme Being what they could not obtain without it is one of the fundamental and distinctive faiths of humanity. Instead of being against the law of nature, it is one of the most uniform and settled laws of the moral world. Hence all men pray in some form or other. Prayer springs out of the sense of man’s dependence upon his Creator; and that sense is built upon a fact beyond dispute or doubt.

2. The intercession of saints. These men were sent to pray before the Lord, not merely for themselves, but for others. Those who sent them proved thereby their faith in the power of man to intercede with God on behalf of his fellow. The intercession of saints is not a doctrine merely of the Roman Church; it is an instinctive belief in the human soul. Men not only implore the Deity for those whom they love, but others implore them to pray for them. How natural it is for a father to pray for his son! how natural, too, for a son to ask the father to pray for him, and friend to ask friend the same! Intercessory prayer is also a law of nature.

3. The special ability of some men to solve the religious questions of others. This Sherezer and Regem-melech appealed 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?” They wanted a certain religious question answered, and they appealed to a certain class of religious men who they believed had the power to do so. The question they asked was one of a selfish character, “Should I weep in the fifth month, separating myself, as I have done these so many years?” From this it would seem that for seventy years during the period of their captivity they had, on certain days, wept, fasted, and humbled themselves before the Lord. Now that many had returned to their own land, and others were returning, they wanted to know whether all this fasting and humiliation would still be required. Would that which was done in Babylon be required in Jerusalem? Would not they in their own land be exonerated from such humiliations of soul? This was the question, and this question they addressed to the priests and the prophets. And they did it because they believed they had the special qualification to solve such problems. This also is an instinctive belief. All communities of men in all times and lands have had a certain class amongst them whom they regarded as qualified more than all others to answer the religious questions of the soul. Hence the existence of priesthoods. It may be that Heaven has never left in any age or country, any race, tribe, or community without such men amongst them, men gifted above their fellows, with a broad moral vision, far reaching intellect, and even prophetic genius. God teaches man by man.

II. RELIGIOUS SERVICES THAT ARE WRONG. The Jews had performed religious services; they had “fasted,” they had “mourned in the fifth and seventh month, even those seventy years.” This was right enough so far as the form is concerned; but in spirit the service was wrong, hence here is the reproof: “Then came the word of the Lord of hosts unto me, saying, Speak unto all the people of the land, and to the priests, saying, When ye fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh month, even those seventy years, did ye at all fast unto me, even to me? And when ye did eat, and when ye did drink, did not ye cat for yourselves, and drink for yourselves?”

1. Their services were selfish. Mark the reproof: “Did ye at all fast unto me?” Was it not from selfish motives that ye did all this? Was it not with a view of obtaining release and securing my favour for yourselves? It is not because you have done the wrong thing against me. “It was not to me, even to me.” The wrong you had done me was not thought of. Your outrages on morality, on the harmony of the universe, were not thought of at all. How much of the popular religion is of this type? The Almighty might well say to the conventional Churches of ChristendomYou rear temples, you contribute property, you preach sermons, you offer prayers, you sing hymns; but it “is not unto me,” it is not to me, it is all self. Whether you fast or feast in your religions services, it is all for “yourselves; it is not for me, not for me.” Religious services that are wrong, where are they not?

2. Selfish motives the Almighty had always denounced. “Should ye not hear the words which the Lord hath 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?” Always has the Lord Almighty denounced a selfish religion (see Isa 66:1-3; Jer 25:3-7; Amo 5:21, Amo 5:27, etc.).D.T.

Zec 7:8-14

Religion, genuine and spurious.

“And the Word of the Lord,” etc. From this passage we infer three facts.

I. GENUINE RELIGION IS PHILANTHROPIC. (Isa 1:16, Isa 1:17; Isa 58:6, Isa 58:7; Mat 5:44.) “Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, Execute tree judgment, and show mercy and compassions every man to his brother,” etc. Here is the ritual, the manifestation, the proof of genuine religion, and it is practical philanthropy. The sign and evidence of genuine religion is not in ceremonial observances or mere devotional exercises, but in the spirit of Christly morality, in doing good to men. St. John says, “We ought to lay down our lives for the brethren, and that because Christ laid down his life for us” (1Jn 3:16). Our love to God is to be shown in the same way as God has shown his love to us, by self-sacrifice, and self-sacrifice for our brother man. What is the true and healthy development of our love to God? The Church has too often acted as if its development was entirely theological; hence the battling for dogmas. It has too often acted as if its development was devotional, as if psalmody and prayers were the only true expression. It has too often acted as if proslytizing was the true development of love to God; hence the zeal to make converts to its faith. The text teaches, however, that self-sacrificing benevolence is the true development. “Whoso hath this world’s good,” etc. The case supposed by the apostle is that of a brother in distress, looked on by a brother possessing this world’s goods, and rendering no help. John intimates that a man seeing his brother in need, having the power to help, and not helping him, cannot be a Christian. He may be a great theologian, a great pietist, a great propagandist, but no Christian.

II. SPURIOUS RELIGION IS INHUMAN. “But they refused to hearken, and pulled away the shoulder, and stopped their ears, that they should not hear.” This religious people not only neglected to do what they were commanded to do towards their fellow men, but the very reverse of that, “they refused to hearken,” etc. The most inhuman force in the world is a spurious religion. All history shows this. Read the history of martyrdom as given by Fox or any other authentic historian. A spurious religion murdered the Son of God himself. A more cruel class of men I know not than religious men whose religion is not that of power, love, or a sound mind. Such men are ever ready to damn these who agree not with their narrow dogmas. Their dogmas make them as heartless as fiends. It makes their “hearts as an adamantine stone.”

III. THAT AN INHUMAN RELIGION HAS A TERRIBLE DOOM. “Therefore it is come to pass, that as he cried, and they would not hear; so they cried, and I would not hear, saith the Lord of hosts.” God will make inquisition here for blood. “The cries of the persecuted and neglected enter into the ears of the Lord God of sabaoth.” “Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days. Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth; and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth. Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter. Ye have condemned and killed the just; and be doth not resist you” (Jas 5:1-6). Because the religion of the Jews had become inhuman, Jehovah permitted them to be carried away into Babylon. “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.” God will ever harden himself against those who have hardened themselves against their fellow men. “With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.”D.T.

Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary

Zec 7:1. In the fourth year of king Darius Two years after they began to rebuild the temple. See chap. Zec 1:1. The month Chisleu answers to part of our November and December.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

III. THE ANSWER TO THE QUESTION CONCERNING THE FAST

Zechariah 7, 8

1. THE QUESTION PROPOSED: THE PROPHETS REBUKE

Zech 7

A. The Question (Zec 7:1-4). B. Present Rebuke (Zec 7:5-7). C. Appeal to the Past (Zec 7:8-14)

1And it came to pass in the fourth year of Darius the king that the word of 2Jehovah came to Zechariah on the fourth day of the ninth month, in Kislev, when 3Bethel1 sent Sharezer and Regem-melech and his men, to entreat Jehovah,2 to speak to the priests who were at the house of Jehovah of Hosts, and to the prophets, saying, Shall I weep in the fifth month, separating myself, as I have now3 done 4, 5so many years? And the word of Jehovah of Hosts came to me, saying, Speak to all the people of the land and to the priests, saying, When ye fasted and mourned in the fifth (month) and in the seventh, and that for seventy years, did ye fast at all to me, to me? 6And when ye eat4 and when ye drink, is it not5 ye who eat 7and ye who drink?6 [Know ye] not the words which Jehovah proclaimed by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and at peace, and her cities round about her, and the South, and the Lowland were inhabited?

8 And the word of Jehovah came to Zechariah, saying,

9 Thus spake7 Jehovah of Hosts, saying,

Judge the judgment of truth,8

And show kindness and pity9 one to another.

10 And widow and orphan,

And stranger and poor man,10 do not oppress;

And evil against a brother
Conceive ye not in your heart.

11 But they refused to attend,

And offered a rebellious shoulder,
And made their ears too heavy to hear.11

12 And their heart they made an adamant,

That they might not hear the law
And the words which Jehovah of Hosts sent by his Spirit,
By means of the former prophets;
And there was great wrath from Jehovah of Hosts.

13 And it came to pass,

That as he cried and they did not hear,
So they call and I hear not,12

Saith Jehovah of Hosts;

14 And I whirl13 them over all the nations whom they knew not:

And the land was made desolate behind them,
So that no one goes out or comes in.
And [so] they made the pleasant land a desert.14

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

This prophecy is separated from what precedes by an interval of nearly two years, during all which time the work upon the Temple had been steadily prosecuted. As the building rose before the eyes of the people and gave promise of a speedy restoration of the ancient worship in its integrity, they became doubtful about the propriety of continuing to observe the solemn fasts by which they commemorated calamitous epochs in their former history, especially the anniversary of the burning of the city and temple by Nebuchadnezzar on the tenth day of the fifth month. Accordingly a message of inquiry was sent to the priests and the prophets, to which the Lord vouchsafed a direct and abundant answer by the hand of Zechariah. The first part of this answer is contained in the chapter before us. After reciting the occasion of the oracle (Zec 7:1-3) the prophet rebukes them for the formalism of their services (Zec 7:4-7), and then reminds them of the disobedience of their fathers and the sad doom which followed (Zec 7:8-14).

Zec 7:1-3. The Question. Zec 7:1. And it came.Kislev. The original here is peculiar, in that the note of time is torn apart, the year being first mentioned, and then after the insertion of a clause on another topic, the day and month are stated. Moreover, the latter notation, in the fourth.Kislev, must belong both to the clause which precedes it and to the one which follows it in Zec 7:2,of which Khler justly says, that although not impossible, it is certainly harsh. The sense, however, is plain. Kislev corresponds to part of November and part of December. The origin and meaning of the name are quite uncertain.

Zec 7:2. When Bethel sent, etc. The LXX., Vulgate, Cocceius, et al., make Bethel the object or accusative of place, but in that case it would have been preceded by , or at least , or made to follow the subject; and besides there seems to be no reason why after the Captivity the Lord should have been sought at Bethel, since neither the altar nor the prophet was there at that time. It must then be the subject, as most expositors hold, but not in the sense of Hengstenberg, as=the congregation of the Lord, the whole people, since there is no usage to sustain this view, but simply=the people of Bethel, many of whom, we know, had returned with Zerubbabel (Eze 2:2-8, Neh 7:32), and soon rebuilt their city (Neh 11:31). Some make the two following names to be in apposition with Bethel (Ewald, Hitzig), but this is harsh as well as needless. The Bethelites sent two of their number, one of whom has an Assyrian name (Sharezer), and was probably born in exile. Their object was to stroke the face, i. e., to conciliate by caresses, or to entreat, Jehovah. It is farther stated in the next verse.

Zec 7:3. To speak to the priests, etc. The priests as well as the prophets were regarded as organs of divine communications. See Hag 2:11, Mal 2:7. is not adequately translated by abstaining, i. e., from food, for it means a separation from all the ordinary occupations of life. It is not, therefore, (as Frst and Keil say)=. The question is put in the name of the population of Bethel, but they represented what was a general feeling, and hence the Lords answer is addressed to the people at large.

Zec 7:4-7 contain a reproof of their manner of observing a fast.

Zec 7:5. Speak to all, etc. The added specification, to the priests, indicates that they particularly needed the information thus given, the substance of which is that the fasting was a matter of no consequence to the Lord. He had not commanded it, nor was it observed out of regard to Him. When the people fasted, and when they ate and drank, it was in either case simply with a view to their own interest. It was therefore a matter of supreme indifference to Him, whether they kept this formal observance or not The text refers not only to the fast in the fifth month, but also to one in the seventh. This was observed on the anniversary of the murder of Gedaliah and his friends (Jer 41:1 ff.). The emphatic repetition, to me, to me, in the end of the verse, is the key to its meaning.

Zec 7:6. And when ye eat, etc. That is, your feasting as well as your fasting, is conducted without regard to me, simply for your own gratification.

Zec 7:7. Know ye not, etc. The sentence being manifestly incomplete, some supply after the first word, and render, Are not these the words, etc. (LXX., Vulgate, Rosenmller, E. V. margin); but this would require a noun with to be taken as a nominative, and besides, there is no record elsewhere of any such utterance of God as this view requires. It is better (Mark, Ewald, Pressel, et al.) to supply know ye, and explain the words in question by what follows in Zec 7:9-10 . Some critics contend for an intransitive rendering as alone proper for this word (cf. Zec 1:2), but here the sense can scarcely be expressed in English except by a passive form. Certainly it would be an undue liberty to supply from Zec 1:11, as Kliefoth and Khler do. The South and the Lowland (Shefela), were well defined geographical divisions of Palestine from the time of the Conquest (cf. in Hebrew, Jos 10:40; Jos 15:21; Jos 15:31; Smith, Diet. Bib., 2291, 2296).

Zec 7:8-14. Here the prophet reminds his people that the Lord required something else than formal fastings, and that the disobedience of the fathers was the cause of their ruin.

Zec 7:9. Thus spake Jehovah, etc. The connection requires that the first verb should be rendered strictly in the preterite, and not as the E. V. in the present. Judgment of truth is that which is founded upon the actual facts in the case without regard to personal considerations (Eze 18:8). Kindness and pity are related as genus and species, the latter being kindness shown to the unfortunate.

Zec 7:10. And widow and orphan, etc. This verse specifies some of the chief ways of violating the preceding requisition, and shows that it covers the thoughts of the heart as well as the acts of the members. The singular occurrence of , after a noun in the construct, is explained by Gen 9:5, where it stands appositionally,=the man who is his brother. Henderson violates all grammar by rendering (after the LXX.), think not in your heart of the injury which one hath done to another. The Vulgate would have been a better guide, malum vir fratri suo non cogitet in corde suo.

Zec 7:11. But they refusedto hear. The figure offered a rebellious shoulder (Neh 9:29), is taken from the conduct of an ox or heifer, refusing the yoke. Cf. Hos 4:16.

Zec 7:12. And they made, etc. Adamant is a better translation for than diamond (Pressel, Khler, etc.), because it suggests only that point for which the term is introduced, namely, its impenetrable hardness. The relative refers to both the preceding nouns, but there is no warrant for giving to the law any but its strict and usual sense. This clause well expresses the two factors in all divine revelation, the guiding Spirit and the inspired instruments. The last clause expresses the result of the disobedience and obduracy of the people.

Zec 7:13. And it came to pass, etc. This verse contains a sudden change in the form of the ad dress. The protasis is in the words of the prophet, but the apodosis, so they call, etc., introduces Jehovah as the speaker, and He continues to be such until the second clause of the concluding verse. The sentiment echoes the last words of the first chapter of Proverbs.

Zec 7:14. And I will whirl them, etc. I prefer the rendering, whom they knew not, of the E. V., following the LXX., to the other, who knew not them, adopted by most critics after the Vulgate. In either case the sense is clear, namely, that they would fall into the hands of those who being total strangers were the less likely to show compassion. Goes out or comes in, literally, goes away and returns again, is an idiomatic phrase, first found in Exo 32:27, for passing to and fro. Its negative presents a sad picture of entire desolation. The pleasant land is a familiar designation of Canaan in its agreeable aspect (Psa 106:24; Jer 3:19). This final clause states the result, and to give it its full effect, requires the parenthetic insertion of so in the version. Thus it is made plain that all the calamity which is bewailed on the fast days was brought on by the sinful obduracy of those to whom the former prophets spoke by the Spirit, but alas, spoke in vain.

THEOLOGICAL AND MORAL

1. The question of the Bethelites indicates very clearly the wretched formalism into which the people had degenerated. The fasts about which they inquired were not of divine appointment, and had no hold upon the conscience. The same authority which originated them could of course discontinue them. The question itself, as well as the motive from which it sprang, betrayed entire ignorance of the nature and design of Scriptural fasting. It is not an ascetic exercise, and has no intrinsic value whatever. Hence even in the complicated and extensive ritual of the Old Testament, there is mention of only one stated fastthe day of atonement (Lev 16:29),and that, only by the indirect expression afflict your souls. In all other cases, and there are very many of them, the service is set forth as strictly pro re nata, something springing out of the circumstances at the time, and intended to cease as soon as they ceased. It would seem as if the design was to guard against the very error of the Jews mentioned here,one that long continued to prevail among them and which centuries afterward was distinctly rebuked by our Lord. At one time the objection was made to him by the disciples of John the Baptist, Why do we and the Pharisees fast oft, but thy disciples fast not? And Jesus said unto them, Can the children of the bride-chamber mourn, as long as the bridegroom is with them? but the days will come when the bridegroom shall be taken from them, and then shall they fast (Mat 9:14-15). That is, while I am present with my disciples, there is no occasion for any such observance, and if I instituted one, its design would surely be mistaken. Hereafter, circumstances will arise when they will instinctively feel that observances of this kind are called for, and then they will appoint them, and retain them so long as may be necessary. Our Lord does not deny the lawfulness or the expediency of fasting; but He does deny its intrinsic excellence or usefulness. It is an expression of sorrow and humiliation proper to be used on the occasions which call for such feelings; then it is fitted to help the discipline of the soul and to lead to benefits quite beyond itself. Indeed, on such occasions it is a suggestion of nature itself,nothing being more common than for extreme grief or other mental excitement to take away the appetite for food. But whenever the exercise is made to recur statedly at regular intervals without regard to circumstances, its inevitable tendency is to degenerate into a barren form and a mischievous self-deception.

2. This error is a serious one. Overstrained devotion to ceremonial observances is sure to react disastrously upon morals. Men lose the sense of proportion, and lay more stress upon mint, anise, and cummin than upon judgment and mercy; and they compensate for rigidity in forms by great looseness in substance. Hence in this chapter, Zechariah, before answering the question proposed, exposes the hollowness of mere outward fastings (Zec 7:5-6), and then reminds them of the causes of their fathers ruin (Zec 7:11-12). It was not due to any inattention to ritual, but to the disregard of the plainest duties of justice and humanity. They had not only the law written on the heart, and the law engraved on the two tables of stone, but the express and reiterated injunctions of the Prophets against all injustice and oppression; and yet they utterly refused to hear. Their children now were in danger of falling into just the same error. It was true then, as it is now, that no religion is worth anything which does not regulate the life and secure the discharge of social and relative duties. Morality is certainly not piety, but the piety which does not include morality is a mere delusion. It mocks God and insults man.

3. God is represented in Scripture as the guardian of the weak. Widows and orphans, the strangers and the poor, they who are especially exposed to ill treatment, are placed under his powerful protection. To them He makes the most precious promises, while upon their oppressors He denounces the heaviest woes. This feature characterizes the Mosaic legislation, so often thoughtlessly denounced as harsh; it is renewed in the older Prophets before the Captivity, and now reappears again in the closing accents of Old Testament inspiration (cf. also Mal 3:5). In respect to these classes, the later dispensation is no advance upon the older, except in the higher sanction contained in the words and works of God manifest in the flesh. One of the surest tests of an intelligent Christianity as well as of a high civilization, is found in the provision made and maintained for those who so often are the victims either of cruel neglect, or, alas, willful oppression! Men need to be continually reminded that such provision is a dictate not merely of reason and humanity, but of Him who has proclaimed Himself the judge of the widow and the helper of the fatherless, who preserveth the stranger, and who hath chosen the poor of this world to be the heirs of his kingdom (Psa 10:14; Psa 68:5; Psa 146:9; Jam 2:5).

4. The most terrible penalties are penalties in kind. Such as the drunkard pays when at last he feels himself the slave of a vicious habit which he knows is ruining body and soul, and yet he is unable to throw off; or the licentious man when desire survives the power of gratification, and he is tortured by appetites for which exhausted nature has no provision. Similar is it in matters of religion. God calls and men refuse to hear. From the days of Enoch down this has been a common experience. Sometimes a judgment falls or wrath is executed speedily. But ordinarily the retribution comes in the line of the sin. Men awake at last to their true situation, and become alarmed. Then the same process begins as before, with the parties reversed. Men call, but they are not heard. They seek, but do not find. They knock, but no door is opened. There is a painful reminder of the words of the wise man: They shall eat of the fruit of their own way and be filled with their own devices (Pro 1:31).

Have we not heard the bridegroom is so sweet,
On, let us in, though late, to kiss his feet!”
No, no, too late! ye cannot enter now.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

Wordsworth: Zechariahs typical and prophetical visions are succeeded by practical instructions. All theological mysteries are consummated in holiness and love. The Jews did well to fast, but not to boast of their fasting and self-mortification. Here is a symptom of that Pharisaical reliance upon outward works of religion, which reached its height in our Lords age (Mat 6:16), and became almost as detrimental to vital piety as idolatry had been in the age before the Captivity. Your fasting was not produced by a deep sense of shame and remorse for sin, as hateful to me and as the cause of your punishment from me. It was not a fast of sorrow for my offended majesty, but for your own punishment. It was not a God-ward sorrow, but a world-ward sorrow (2Co 7:10).

Tillotson: A truly religious fast consists in (1.) The afflicting of our bodies by a strict abstinence that so they may be fit instruments to promote the grief of our minds. (2.) In the humble confession of our sins to God. (3.) In an earnest deprecation of Gods displeasure. (4.) In intercession for such spiritual and temporal blessings upon ourselves and others as are needful. (5.) In alms and charity to the poor. (6.) In the actual reformation of our lives.

Moore: All stated fasts tend to degenerate into superstition, unless there is some strong counteracting agency. The original reference to God is lost in the mere outward act. This is the case with Popish observances of the present day. Selfishness is the bane of all true piety, as godliness is its essence. Warnings of punishment when no signs of it are seen, are often disregarded. They who cherish hard hearts must expect hard treatment. The harder the stone, the harder will be the blow of the hammer of beak it. They who will not bear the burden of obedience, must bear the burden of punishment.

Hengstenberg: The Jews estimate of the value of fasting. A custom which had no meaning, except as the outward manifestation of a penitent state of heart, was regarded as having worth in itself, as an opus operatum. It was supposed that merit was thereby acquired; and surprise and discontent were expressed that God had not yet acknowledged and rewarded the service of so many years.

Footnotes:

[1]Zec 7:2. is a proper name here, as it is in Jdg 20:18; Jdg 20:26; Jdg 20:31.

[2]Zec 7:2 . Henderson renders this (here and in Zec 8:21) in rather superfine English,to conciliate the regard. It is not=pray before (E. V.), but simply, to entreat or beseech. Cf. 2Ch 33:12.

[3]Zec 7:3 here is equivalent to our now. Gen 31:38. See Text, and Gram, on Zec 1:12.

[4]Zec 7:6.The tenses in the first clause cannot grammatically be rendered as preterites, as E. V.

[5]Zec 7:6.The marginal rendering (E. V.) of the question is better than that of the text, as leaving less to be supplied.

[6]Zec 7:6.The question, Is it not ye, etc., implies, Have I anything at all to do with it? Is it not your own affair entirely?

[7]Zec 7:9.The first verb must be rendered in the preterit; spake, not speaketh.

[8]Zec 7:9.Judgment of truth. The margin of E. V. is better than the text.

[9]Zec 7:9., kindness. , pity. See for the latter on Zec 1:16.

[10]Zec 7:10.As the first four nouns are anarthrous in the original, it is more literal as well as more spirited to render them so in the version.

[11]Zec 7:11.In , the preposition has its not unusual privative force.

[12]Zec 7:13.The change of tense in the latter half of this verse is obliterated in the E. V. The writer passes from narration, and cites the ipsissima verba of Jehovah. This is a better explanation than that which makes the future express a past action still continuing (Moore). Khler and Pressel extend the citation as far as , but it is better with Ewald and Umbreit to make it terminate with , since the next verb is clearly a preterite.

[13]Zec 7:14 is not an Aramaic form, but results from the guttural attracting to itself the vowel of the preceding vav. (Green Heb. Gram., 60, 3 c. and 92 e.)

[14]Zec 7:14.To render the last clause impersonally (Maurer), is enfeebling as well as needless.

Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange

CONTENTS

The Lord is speaking to the Prophet in this Chapter, not by vision, but by revelation. The people of the Land come to ask questions of the Prophet, in the name of the Lord, and the Prophet is commanded to make answer for the Lord.

(Zec 7:1 ). And 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 Chissleu;

If the Reader will calculate the different dates of the Prophet’s account concerning his ministry, he will find that nearly two years had elapsed from his former preaching. See Zec 1:7 . The month Chisleu corresponds to our October and November in part.

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Zec 7:9 ; Mic 6:8

Besides various maxims of renunciation and wisdom written from top to bottom of the stele, Confucius has left to this sanctuary certain thoughts on literature which have been engraved in letters of gold in such a way as to form pictures hung on the walls. Here is one which I transcribe for young western scholars who are preoccupied with classification and inquiry. They will find in it a reply twice two thousand years old to one of their favourite questions: The literature of the future will be the literature of compassion.

Pierre Loti’s Last Days of Pekin, Describing temple of Confucius.

Reference. VIII. 4, 5. J. G. Simpson, Christian Ideals, p. 75.

Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson

Fasting and Feasting

Zec 7 , Zec 8

It is not enough to fast That may be a trick; there may be a way of doing it which robs it of all its virtue and of all its significance. God takes our ceremonies to pieces, and says aloud, What is the meaning of all this your church-going and hymn-singing, and apparently decent observance of religious ordinances? Is it in reality unto me, or is it unto yourselves? Fasting is not postponed feasting. Yet this is what it has been turned into many times. Fasting has become a process by which we have got ready for eating. We have kept, as it were, on one side all the things we have abstained from, and then, when the fasting day was over, we transferred the whole of them to the table, and gorged ourselves with the very things we had fasted from. That is not fasting. When you fast from your bread, you must give your bread away “Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry?” Fasting is not to lock the cupboard where the bread is, and to say, We shall not want you to-day, but tomorrow about this time we shall be prepared for the feast. No, the loaf must be given away, and there must not be left one crust in the house. When we feast the poor, we truly fast ourselves. God will not have any other fasting. As for church-going, what is the meaning of it? Is it to relieve the tedium of a dull night? Is it to hear something that will titillate the senses or momentarily please the fancy? Is it to avoid something at home? Or does it express the spirit of adoration, the necessity of the soul’s immortality? Is it a coming to God because he is God? Is it worship, or a form of entertainment? The Lord thus searches into our ceremonies and says, What do they mean? So also with our feasting: the criticism of God is not partial: the judgment of heaven attends our banqueting, and asks questions whilst the foaming goblet is in our hands.

“And when ye did eat, and when ye did drink, did not ye eat for yourselves, and drink for yourselves?” ( Zec 7:6 ).

But, O thou loving God, thou art also our Creator, and are we not so made that we cannot get away from ourselves? The Lord answers, Yes, you are so made; but you forget there is a second creation, a miracle called incarnation, and following upon that a sacrament called Pentecost, the Whittide of the Spirit’s descent, so that a man shall be himself, yet no longer himself, yea, another self; God will give him another heart. If any man be in Christ Jesus, he is not his old self one whit, but a new creature, with new aspirations, new necessities, new desires, with the restlessness which leads to contentment, with the ambition that despises the constellations because they are too small for its religious capacity. You are right when you say you cannot get away from yourselves; your prayers are selfish unless you take great heed to them; but if you be rooted in Christ, living branches in the living Vine, why then you shall perform this miracle of being yourself and yet not yourself; of the earth, yet of the heaven; standing upon the earth, yet having a celestial citizenship and franchise.

Is the Lord contented either with fasting or feasting? No. Fasting and feasting are parts of a process. They are nothing in themselves. Do not think you are going to heaven because you are total abstainers; do not imagine you are going to heaven because you are winebibbers and gluttons; do not suppose that any ordinance has in itself as such any virtue; it is but typical, symbolical, indicative, a finger pointing to the Lamb, the Life, the Divine. If you look at the index-finger, and do not follow the direction which it indicates, the looking at the finger will do nothing for you. What will God have? He never changes; his exactions or requirements are always the same, and are always moral. He does not want clever men, brilliant men, startling men; he wants something that every man, woman, and child can produce: he is the God of humanity, and not the God of human eccentricity. Hence we have universal terms, lines that touch the horizon; they are moral appeals and judgments. Thus:

“Execute true judgment, and show mercy and compassions every man to his brother: and 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” ( Zec 7:9-10 ).

That does not require any learned exposition. These are the claims that establish the inspiration of the Bible and the authority of Christ’s kingdom in the world. The Bible will have nobody oppressed. Wherever the Bible sees any one who is helpless, it sends the whole Church down to him; though the Church be engaged in ringing bells and observing sacraments, and doing all manner of official or mechanical work, the Bible voice says, Halt! There is a man outside who needs you: men first, and your ceremonies afterwards. Why do not men yield to the spirit of the Bible? When they discuss the Bible, why do they not attack its central citadel? Why do they go about striking little lights, and trying to set fire to its outposts? Here is a book that wants justice, mercy, honesty, purity, peace, brotherhood. That Bible you cannot overturn. Clever men can do wonderful things with the chronology of the Bible and the external relations of biblical history; but the worst man that ever lived, though he be clever with the cleverness of a thousand unbelievers, can say nothing against this, “What doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” That is the Bible; that is the inspired Bible; that is eternal franchise of redeemed man. Oh, if the critics, the word-splitters, and the word-mongers would confine themselves to what the Bible wants really and vitally to be at, namely, the redemption, the regeneration, the sanctification and glorification of the image of God in man, infidelity would be suffocated; infidelity could not live in that air, it would die and be forgotten. Ministers and churches are not set up to find food for infidels; it is not their function to say, Now here is a difficulty, and there is an impossibility, and yonder is something we cannot explain. Let these things alone; you have a book that says, “Execute true judgment, and show mercy and compassions every man to his brother.” Will you tear that book to pieces, will you turn your back upon that document? Love it, repeat it, teach it to your children, bind it on your frontlets, write it on the doorposts of your house, and thus help the incoming of the reign of the Son of man.

The Bible establishes a great brotherhood. It does not found itself on municipal lines, which have such an amazing fascination for certain state mechanicians. Only get something founded upon municipal lines, and the world will enter upon halcyon days. Nothing of the kind. Get society established on household lines, on family lines, on home lines, and society will be secured in all that is of value, in permanence, dignity, and utility. God will have a house, it is called the Father’s house; he will have a family, it is called the whole family in heaven, and on earth. Where is the dividing line? ay, where? We may have made one, we are fond of delimitations of frontiers and the marking of boundaries, but see to it that we do not begin to delimit the frontier between time and eternity. What if time and eternity belong to one another, and swing together in heavenly music and harmony? God will have the house, the family, the home, the brotherhood; and he will have this because Jesus is the Son of man. O think of man with this outcome the Son of man! There is a creed that wants us to worship Humanity, with a capital H, but that humanity is too filmy, impalpable, vague; it is not the humanity that is present, but the humanity that is past, and the humanity that is to come, that is to be worshipped; but the humanity that is past is by so much dead, and the humanity that is to come is not born, so that when we want to concentrate our worship upon this humanity, with an infinite H, the heart says, Beyond is what we want! Name that anonymous figure flitting before the mind’s eye in outline what is that? And we say, That is the Son of man, concrete, personal, individual, Christly. The heart says, Let him enter; it is enough, he fills up the spaces of the soul, as the tide fills all the caves and inner places, and levels with liquid reconciliation all the ruggedness of the crag, and rock; let him come, we belong to him, and he belongs to us. When he comes, will he have any other law than this? None. Sometimes in mood of mind as if in intense and desperate haste he totalises the whole command of God, and says, It is but twofold: thou shalt love the Lord, and thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself the Old Testament rewritten, without supplement, with a new ink, red as the blood of the heart of the Son of God.

This law having been laid down, and insisted upon by moral appeal, what came of it?

“They refused to hearken, and pulled away the shoulder, and stopped their ears, that they should not hear” ( Zec 7:11 ).

They acted like restive horses or restive oxen. “Pulled away the shoulder” because the yoke chafed it. Men do thus, and then blame Providence for the results. Men never say, We have disobeyed God, and therefore these things have come upon us. Man will have his own way, and would still enjoy the peace, favour, and blessing of God; and God in heaven will not have that arrangement. Man wants to be law-maker and law-breaker; man wants to do just what he pleases to do, and expects everything to be according to his mind and taste at last. The earth will not help him. He says, You must grow something yourself for me this year; I am not going to sow your furrows with seed. Come now, whilst I slumber you grow me some corn! And the earth says, No; obedience before harvest, toil before wealth; thou shalt work for thy bread, and work honestly, and then it shall be bread unleavened with a sense of indolence or injustice. Know then that you cannot be both God and man; understand that at the very start of life you must be under law. You can pull away the shoulder, you can put your fingers into your ears and not hear the law, but the law is still there. A man can close his eyes and say, Behold, at midday it is midnight. Who is to be believed, the fool who has shut his eyes or the sun that lights the firmament with the blessing of his glory? When men begin to say that they are guilty and that God is innocent, they have brought about this ruin, and God would have brought about peace and righteousness; when common sense rules our thinking we shall get into law and order, and afterwards into harmony and peace. We must be rigorous, we must be severe with ourselves; we must say whenever there is something wrong in the way of life, We did this: now when did we do it? how did we do it? Shall I blame somebody else, or shall I blame myself? Always be severe with your own soul. We have no title to be severe with other men until we have made our own standing sure before God.

It is interesting to observe how society was constituted before the building of the temple:

“Thus saith the Lord of hosts; Let your hands be strong, ye that hear in these days these words by the mouth of the prophets, which were in the day that the foundation of the house of the Lord of hosts was laid, that the temple might be built. For before these days there was no hire for man, nor any hire for beast; neither was there any peace to him that went out or came in because of the affliction: for I set all men every one against his neighbour” ( Zec 8:9-10 ).

That was how society went before the temple was built. A neglected temple always means a ruined society. These words are not to be applied locally or parochially; they express an eternal and unchangeable principle. A neglected God is a frowning heaven; a frowning heaven is a desolated earth. We must more and more insist upon the importance of the religious spirit in its relation to policy and commerce and agriculture, and the whole mechanism and build and meaning of society. Unless we cultivate our own spirituality to a high degree we may soon be tempted to forego this argument, or allow ourselves to be victimised into the belief that it is not an argument, but a sentiment. The first thing which the Christian man has to do is to keep up his spirituality to the very highest point. By keeping up spirituality I mean the cultivation of that insight which sees more than surface, more than so-called phenomena; that penetrating insight that sees behind all these things a Spirit, a Providence, ruling, moulding, and directing all things. We walk by faith, not by sight: Lord, increase our faith! We see nothing as it really is; the reality is beyond the appearance. Why be satisfied with the door? Smite it that it may fly open, and let the opening door be an invitation to enter and partake of the hospitality of God.

Always in Biblical history when men turned away from God, God turned away from them: “Therefore it has come to pass: Therefore I scattered them with a whirlwind among all nations: he that honoureth me I will honour, he that despiseth me I will lightly esteem.” This is not arbitrary, this is not the changeable rule of a changeable court; this is simply the utterance of an eternal necessity. The sun says, He that will not have me shall have darkness and death. Is the sun cruel? Nay, the sun is clement and pitiful by announcing that fact; the sun offers its dower of light and warmth and comfort. So when we speak in Gospel words about the wicked being driven away in his wickedness, and about man neglecting to build the temple, and therefore having no harvest to reap, we are not delivering the arbitrary decrees of some fancy-created Jove; we are announcing the law of the universe, whoever made it.

What comes after the building of the temple? This:

“For the seed shall be prosperous; the vine shall give her fruit, and the ground shall give her increase, and the heavens shall give their dew” ( Zec 8:12 ).

Certainly; the heavens and the earth are one: if one member suffer all the members suffer with it. When the earth is wrong there is a thrill of pain all through the system to which it belongs. It is a little earth, but touch the body at any point, and instantly you communicate with the brain; and so when even this little earth sinned its first sin and damned itself in the sight of God, there went up through all the system to which it belongs a shock of agony; yea, it touched the Lord, it brought him to our aid. Let me tell business men that they cannot have any real success unless they are profoundly religious. Appearances are often to the contrary. Appearances amount to nothing. We cannot take in the case within the limits of three years or thirty years; we must look upon the whole field-space and upon the whole time-space, and this is written at the root of all things: A man cannot neglect God and be really rich. He may have heaps of money, but he has not wealth; he is not the owner of the wealth, the wealth is his owner; he is not proprietor, he is slave. He has locked himself up in his own gold-chest, and there he famishes as if he were a beggar. His soul is fat who makes the lives of others pleasant; he is strong who shares his strength with the weak.

These are solid doctrines to rest upon God calling for judgment; God approving the moral, the righteous, and the true; God connecting his heaven with his earth, and God’s heaven shrouding itself in frowns when God’s earth rushes into sin and selfishness. This is the economy in which we live. We can pull out the shoulder, chafe against the bars of the cage, but the cage is there, and we cannot escape. Much better surrender, obey; seek the appointed way to peace, which is the way of the Cross, the way of Calvary, the way of that wonder which is called by this name none nobler the Atonement. Do not define it, but receive it in its largeness of reconciliation and hospitality and love. Oh, fall down before it, and say, “Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief.”

Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker

XXVIII

THE BOOK OF ZECHARIAH (CONTINUED) PART II

Zec 4:1-8:23

The fifth vision of Zechariah gave the people encouragement regarding their spiritual condition. The others gave them encouragement from the political and geographical standpoint, but this has reference to the inner, spiritual condition. This vision is for Zerubbabel, the messianic representative, the heir to the throne of David. The prophet says that he was wakened as a man that is wakened out of his sleep. This vision comes on the same night as the others, and apparently the prophet had fallen asleep between the former visions and this one. The same angel that had spoken to him before is still with him, and he says, “What seest thou? And I said, I have seen, and, behold, a candlestick all of gold, with its bowl upon the top of it, and its seven lamps thereon; there are seven pipes to each of the lamps, which are upon the top thereof.”

This is his description of the seven-branched candlestick. There was a bowl above the candlestick probably in the center holding a large amount of oil. The seven branches of the candlestick spread on either side, and he says, “There are seven pipes to each of the lamps.” Seven signifies perfection, and therefore the supply will be never-failing, and all-sufficient to keep those lights burning. Again, there are other means by which this bowl is itself to be supplied with oil. Two olive trees stand by it, one upon the right side of the bowl and the other upon the left side. The olive trees furnished the oil which was used for their lamps. Now the prophet does not understand the vision and he asks the question, saying, “What are these, my Lord? Then the angel that talked with me answered and said unto me, Knowest thou not what these are? And I said, No, my Lord. Then he answered and spake unto me,” giving a fuller description of the vision that had been presented to him, and the latter part of Zec 4:10 is a continuation of the description of the vision.

I read from Zec 4:6 , first part, and Zec 4:10 , latter part: “Then he answered and spake unto me saying, . . . These are the eyes of Jehovah,” the perfection of knowledge and oversight of God, “which run to and fro through the whole earth.” Those seven lights thus represent the omnipresence and omniscient activity of God. Zec 4:11 continues the description: “Then answered I, and said unto him, What are these two olive trees upon the right side of the candlestick and upon the left side thereof?” He does not answer at once, but the prophet asks again the question, “and I answered the second time, and said unto him, What are these two olive branches, which are beside the two golden spouts that empty the golden oil out of themselves?” The olive branches acted as spouts for the olive trees carrying the olive oil from the trees to the golden bowl at the top, then through the seven pipes to each one of the lamps on the candlestick. “And he answered me and said, Knowest thou not what these things are? I said, No, my Lord. Then said he, These are the two anointed ones, that stand by the Lord of the whole earth.” This refers to the two representatives of Jehovah among the people of Israel, Joshua, the religious leader, and Zerubbabel, the civil leader, one representing the regal and the other the priestly function of the theocracy as found in the hierarchy. These are the two olive trees which furnish the oil to the burning lamps.

Now let us see the application as we find it in the latter part of Zec 4:6 , to the first part of Zec 4:10 , bearing in mind this picture before the prophet of the two olive trees. What does it mean? “This is the word of Jehovah unto Zerubbabel.” This was on behalf of the civil government, and it was through Zerubbabel that this message should be fulfilled among the people of Israel in the rebuilding of the Temple and the establishment of the nation. It was to be by the power of the Spirit of Jehovah, not by an army nor by fighting, not by mere strength nor power of any kind, “but by my Spirit, saith Jehovah.” That is a great text, which has had its application all through the ages. Not by an army is this work to be done, Zerubbabel, not by your strength and prowess, not by anything but the Spirit of God, and this represents that operation: the two olive trees supply the oil which runs to the lamps and which keeps them burning. The process is unseen but its effects can be seen. That is the message to Zerubbabel.

Now the encouragement is in these words (Zec 4:7 ). “Who art thou, O great mountain?” A great difficulty seemingly insurmountable was before Zerubbabel. “Before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain; and he shall bring forth the top stone with shoutings of Grace, grace, unto it.” The mountain shall disappear, the difficulty shall vanish, because the mighty power of the Spirit of God is going to be felt in the hearts and spirits of men, and they are to come to thy help. The Temple shall be completed and he shall bring forth the top stone “with shoutings of Grace, grace unto it.” That was wonderfully encouraging to Zerubbabel, who must have been discouraged. Now the promise comes with great force: “The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house” (which was done under the preaching of Haggai); “his hands shall also finish it; and thou shalt know that Jehovah of hosts hath sent me (the prophet Zechariah) unto you.” But there were some that despised this small beginning, this almost contemptible start of the building: “Who hath despised the day of small things?” Many people have done it, but they are going to change their minds; they are going to rejoice and be glad when they shall see the plummet in the hands of Zerubbabel; when the prince shall begin the work of erection of the Temple.

The sixth is the vision of the flying roll, or the curse re-moved (Zec 5:1-4 ). People, priests and leaders have been encouraged. Now there comes a message saying that a certain class of people who are a nuisance and a trouble shall be removed out of their midst and they shall get rid of them once for all. This refers to the cleaning out of certain types of criminals among them. The prophet see” a roll, or scroll, flying in the air, and the angel speaks to him, “What seest thou? And I answered, I see a flying roll; the length thereof is twenty cubits and the breadth thereof ten cubits.” That was a large roll, or sheet of paper, twenty cubits by ten cubits, or fifteen by thirty feet, to see flying. “Then he said unto me, This is the curse that goeth forth over the face of the whole land.” What was the curse to do? Every one that stealeth shall be cut off and every one that sweareth shall be cut off. The roll represents the principle of law to be administered by Israel; the flying roll means the active principle of law; the written roll, a published principle of law; in heaven means that the law and its penalty were from God.

The vision teaches that as Judah and Jerusalem were troubled by these criminals, Jehovah would send a curse among them and consume their families, their homes, and their houses, extirpate them, and thus cleanse Jerusalem from such a troublesome element. This was to be a great blessing to the people, as it would be almost impossible for them to go forward with such criminals in their midst.

The seventh is a vision of the woman in the barrel, or wickedness removed from the land (Zec 5:5-11 ). It is a vision wherein God shows to Zechariah that the spirit and principle of sin which seems to be engraved in the people’s natures would be removed by the divine power from their midst. It is the picture of an ephah, a large measure about equal to our bushel measure, really a barrel with a round top and cover to it. In the barrel there is a woman sitting. This woman represents wickedness: the principle of sin that is so prominent among the people. The lid is upon it, and on the lid is a talent of lead, a great weight. The woman is forced down into the barrel, the lid is closed over it.

Two other women appear with wind in their wings, wings like those of a stork, and they lift up the ephah between earth and heaven. Then the prophet asks the question, “Whither do these bear the ephah? And he said unto me, To build her an house in the land of Shinar: and when it is prepared, she shall be set there in her own place.” Shinar, or the Plain of Babylon was the place where wickedness began, the plain where they attempted to build a tower into heaven and were scattered abroad; the plain which had been the means of Israel’s oppression. The idea is this: That sin must be removed, and it cannot be removed by a ritual or by a legal punishment. It must be removed by the action of the Almighty God himself. Human hands cannot carry away the sins of the people. That is a divine operation only and sin is represented here by a woman, not because a woman is more sinful or worse than a man, but because sin is so attractive. It must therefore be dealt with by God himself and banished from the land. According to this vision it is going to be done; evil is surely to be extirpated.

The eighth vision, or the chariots of the four winds, or spirits (Zec 6:1-8 ), is a vision of the universal providence of God; as the first vision was a vision of God’s providential scouts watching all that was upon the horizon of the world’s history, this is a vision of the universal providence of God visiting punishment upon the nations that have oppressed Israel. And in the first vision there were angels upon horses; here we have horses and chariots. He sees four chariots corresponding to the four points of the compass and representing the completeness of the operation of God’s providence. They came forth from between the mountains) and the mountains were mountains of brass. The mountains refer to Mount of Olives and Mount Moriah upon which Jerusalem was built. Brass represents the everlasting quality and strength of the mountains.

The first chariot had red horses attached to it, the second, black horses, the third, white horses, and the fourth grizzled or dappled horses. The brass mountains represent the invincible nature of the theocracy; the different kinds of horses correspond almost exactly to the four horses which John saw on Patmos as recorded in Rev 6 . The white horse there represents the gospel going forth in its conquests; the black horse represents the scarcity of the gospel when it was in the hands of certain ones who doled it out and starved the people; the red horse represents the conflict that arose wherever the gospel went; the grizzled or pale horse represents the persecutions that follow in the wake of the gospel.

These four chariots here represent the four winds, and the four winds represent the four great punishments or judgments of God that are to break forth upon all parts of the world, the analogue of what John sees in Rev 7 , where he represents the four angels as holding the four winds of the earth. Here are four chariots representing the four winds or universal providence of God upon the nations (see Revelation of “The Interpretation”) .

Now he sends them forth, the black horses and the white horses go forth to Babylonia and the natives adjoining to inflict the punishments of Jehovah upon those people. The grizzled horses go south to Egypt to inflict punishment upon her, because Israel had suffered at the hands of that nation also. The red horses want to know where they are to go, and they are told that they are to walk up and down, to and fro, through the earth, that is, they are to pass up and down through the land of Palestine and be the administrators of the divine providence in that region.

Then a question arises here concerning the mission of the chariots with the black horses and the white horses, which go toward the north. “Behold they that go toward the north country have quieted my spirit in the north country.” What does that mean? It means that they have caused his anger and wrath to rest upon those nations in the north which have oppressed Israel; that they are to inflict God’s severe punishment upon those people in the north country, until they are exterminated, and God’s spirit will rest because those enemies are gone. In other words, it means that they have caused this providential visitation of God to come upon and abide upon that north country. History bears us out in this, and from this time on, Babylonia, Assyria, and Syria began to decay, and God’s providential judgments have ever since then been upon these peoples.

The result of the visions was the crowning of Joshua, the priest (Zec 6:9-15 ). Following these visions which have given encouragement to the people and the leaders, which have promised freedom from sin and iniquities, and which have given them a vision of God’s universal providence on their behalf, they are ready for the crowning of Joshua as joint-sovereign and ruler with Zerubbabel, the son of David.

This is not a vision by the prophet, but a symbolic action which the prophet himself performs. There appear before him in the daylight, men who have come recently from Babylon and the captivity, such as Heldai, Tobijah, and Jedaiah, who have come into the house of Josiah, the son of Zephaniah, who dwells in the city. They are to bring silver and gold, such as they brought from Babylonia, and he is to make a crown, or crowns. The crown was a wreath, or diadem, which would encircle the brow of the priest, and it may have been made of two or three small wreaths, or rings, and put together would form one crown. That is probably the explanation of the word “crowns” mentioned here because there is only one man crowned, Joshua, which would necessitate only one crown, made of several small wreaths. Zerubbabel is ex officio entitled to a crown, being the direct heir of the line of David. Now Joshua is crowned.

Then comes the word regarding Zerubbabel: “Thus spake the Lord of hosts, Behold, the man whose name is the Branch.” Zerubbabel is the man mentioned in the fourth vision: “He shall grow up out of his place”; he shall come out of his obscurity and assert his royal dignity and power. The vision predicts that he is going to rise up and build the Temple of Jehovah, and, as it says in Zec 6:13 , “He shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon his throne; and he shall be a priest upon his throne; and the counsel of peace shall be between them both.” They now have two crowned rulers, prince and priest. Zerubbabel is going to assert his place of power. Now, with the religious leader crowned, and the civil leader roused, the Temple is going to be built. Then these crowns that are here made are going to be preserved in the Temple as a memorial of those men who brought the silver and gold from Babylon, “And this shall come to pass, if ye will diligently obey the voice of Jehovah your God.”

The larger fulfilment of this prophecy, the crowning of the prince and the crowning of the priest comes into vision as we look upon the one who represents both the priest and the prince. He represented in himself the priestly and the kingly authority, and he built the spiritual temple which shall abide to all eternity. Zechariah, however, is talking about building that Temple in Jerusalem, and his word has its application primarily to Joshua and Zerubbabel, but its larger application is to the priest-hood and kingship of Jesus Christ, the true Branch of the line of David. (For the typical significance of this crowning of Joshua see Rev 6:1 , of “The Interpretation.”)

Now we take up Zechariah 7-8, the theme of which is the true fasts, and we find that these are dated some two years later, in the fourth year of the reign of King Darius. There is an interval of almost two years between those two prophecies. The question arises, What was done in the meantime? Those two years were occupied with the work of rebuilding the Temple under the inspiration of the preaching of Haggai and those visions which Zechariah saw. Two years passed, probably of strenuous labor, and by that time the Temple was half erected, or more. Jt required about four years to complete it, and it was in the sixth year of the reign of Darius, or 516 B.C., that it was dedicated.

With the erection of the Temple there arose in the minds of the people the question of the keeping of their ceremonial laws. That gave rise to certain questions in the minds of some people, and they came to Joshua and to the leaders in Jerusalem with the question as to whether they should observe certain facts that had been observed since the beginning of the exile, about seventy years previous. This question on the part of those inquirers, gave the prophet his opportunity, and he deals with their problems, and by means of that inculcates the performance of civic virtues and duties which they must soon resume.

We observe in the second verse that a delegation came from Bethel composed of Sharezer and Regemmelech and others, to entreat the favor of Jehovah, and to speak unto the priests of the house of Jehovah of hosts and to the prophets, probably Zechariah, and Haggai, and possibly others of whom we know nothing, and they came with a question regarding certain facts which they had been observing. He does not say whether they should observe the fast or not, but he proceeds upon broader lines and principles. As much as to say, “God did not institute that fast which you have been observing these seventy years in the fifth month. It was not his requirement. You men of Israel instituted the fast yourselves. It was in commemoration of an event which Almighty God would have prevented if he could have done so righteously. It is in commemoration of an event which was because of your sins. He then throws back the question to them: “When ye fasted in the fifth and seventh month, did ye fast unto me?”

The fast in the seventh month was in commemoration of the murder of Gedaliah, the Jewish governor who had been appointed by Nebuchadnezzar, governor over the last, small, miserable semblance of national life, left after the fall of the city. “Even these seventy years, when fasting on the fifth and seventh month, did ye at all fast unto me, even to me?” Was that God’s requirement: The answer is evident. No, your fasting was not unto God. Ye did it not at his commandment. Therefore, ye need not raise the question whether you should continue it or not. But he goes on, “And when ye eat and when ye drink, do not you eat for yourselves and drink for yourselves?”

The point here is: Do you eat and drink to the glory of God? Then he makes an application of the historical episodes through which they had passed and which had burned themselves into the people’s memory. Rather than concern yourselves with this fasting in these months, or with eating and drinking, or not eating and drinking, he says in Zec 7:7 , “Should ye not hear the words which Jehovah hath cried by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and in prosperity, and the cities thereof round about her, and the South and the low lands were inhabited?” In other words, God sent his prophets; ye did not hearken to them, and therefore ye lost all; now learn by your history and give heed to the word of the former prophets. Then he branches out to discuss and inculcate civic righteousness instead of mere ceremonial fasting: “The word of Jehovah came unto Zechariah saying, Thus saith Jehovah of hosts, Speak, saying, Execute true judgment and show mercy and compassion to every man his brother.” Zechariah here says, “Take warning by the past, op-press not the widow nor the fatherless, the stranger nor the poor,” and penetrating right to the very heart of the people and to their very motives, he says, “Let none of you imagine evil against his brother in his heart.” In Zec 7:11 he again refers to their past history and to the stubbornness of their forefathers; how they refused to hear; how they made their hearts as hard as adamant lest they should hear the law and the words of the former prophets. Because of that, great wrath came from Jehovah of hosts, so great that when they cried, God did not hear. He scattered them as a whirlwind among all nations whom they had not known. Because of that even the land was desolate and the pleasant land was laid waste. Here Zechariah was in line with Moses. Isaiah. Jeremiah. Jesus Christ, and Paul.

The Seed of Peace, or the Future Prophecy of Jerusalem, is the theme of Zec 8 . Here in this chapter we have ten brief oracles, each one beginning with the same statement, “Thus saith Jehovah of hosts,” and in these ten oracles he gives a picture of the future peace and prosperity of the Temple and the establishment of the nation upon its religious foundation again. He commends their heavy labor in this work, and on the supposition that they are going to heed his word, and take warning by their past history, he proceeds to give them this series of views of the glory that shall come to their city and nation, as follows:

Oracle 1. A renewed assertion of God’s jealousy for them (Zec 8:1-2 ). Like the true prophet, he begins with fundamentals. He brings before their minds again the thought of God’s eternal love and God’s eternal interest in those people. “I am jealous for Zion with great jealousy.”

Oracle 2. Jehovah’s dwelling in Jerusalem, the city of truth and righteousness (Zec 8:3 ). “I am returned unto Zion and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem.” It means his continued presence and therefore their assured blessing.

Oracle 3. There shall be the aged and the young in the city (Zec 8:4-5 ). We can understand something of the meaning of this prophecy) when we look at the character of the population of Jerusalem. Many of the people returned from the exile, but there were comparatively few aged men and women. They had not been settled long in the land and there were comparatively few children, and Jerusalem had comparatively few inhabitants anyway, and what is a city or community unless there be the aged with their wisdom, their mellow and ripened years, and what is a city or community without the playing, prattling children in the streets? A community of middle-aged men or women is not complete. All sides of human life are not there represented. Now he says the time is coming when there will be the aged, and there will be the boys and girls: there shall be old men and old women in the streets of Jerusalem, and every man with his staff in his hand for very age, and the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing therein.

Oracle 4. The marvel of their prosperity will be no marvel to God (Zec 8:6 ). “If it be marvelous in the eyes of the remnant of these people in those days, should it also be marvelous in mine eyes? saith the Lord of hosts.” There is nothing marvelous with God.

Oracle 5. Jehovah brings back his people (Zec 8:7-8 ). “Thus saith Jehovah of hosts: Behold, I will save my people from the east country and from the west country; and I will bring them, and they shall dwell in the midst of Jerusalem, and they shall be my people, and I will be their God, in truth and in righteousness.” This was partly fulfilled then, but finds its larger fulfilment in Christianity.

Oracle 6. An exhortation to strengthen their hands (Zec 8:9-13 ). Zec 8:9 is an admonition, “Let your hands be strong, ye that hear in these days these words,” etc., which came by the mouth of Haggai as well as Zechariah himself. The Temple, he says, will be built, for that was the purpose of these prophecies. Before these words of the prophets came there was no hire for man, nor any hire for beast, neither was there any peace to any that went in or out, because of the adversary. In Zec 8:11 he gives the contrast: “Now I will not be unto the remnant of this people as in the former days . . . There shall be the seed of peace; the vine shall give its fruit, and the ground shall give its increase, and the heavens shall give their dew; and I will cause the remnant of this people to inherit all these things. It shall come to pass that, as ye were a curse among the nations . . . so ye shall be a blessing.”

Oracle 7. Justice shall be their standard (Zec 8:14-17 ). He gives the reasons why he had planned evil before. He plans good now on this condition as given in verse 16: “Speak ye every man the truth with his neighbour; execute the judgment of truth and peace in your gates; and let none of you devise evil in your hearts against his neighbour; and love no false oath: for all these are things that I hate saith Jehovah.”

Oracle 8. Fasts turned into feasts (Zec 8:18-19 ). The fast of the fourth month was because Jerusalem was then taken by Nebuchadnezzar, of the fifth month because it was then burned; the fast of the seventh month was because Gedaliah was then slain, and the fast of the tenth month commemorated the blockade of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar a year and a half previous to its being taken. These four dire events in their history had been celebrated by fasts during the exile and up to this period of the return. “Now,” says the prophet, “this has been changed; these fasts shall be to the house of Judah joy and gladness, and cheerful feasts,” since the things that caused these fasts had passed away. “Therefore,” he says, “love truth and peace.”

Oracle 9. Peoples and nations shall come to Jehovah (Zec 8:20-22 ). “There shall come peoples, and the inhabitants of many cities; and the inhabitants of one city shall go to another, saying, Let us go speedily to entreat the favor of Jehovah, and to seek Jehovah of hosts.” This was partly fulfilled then, but the larger fulfilment is found in messianic times when all people shall come to the true Israel of God.

A tender and delicate touch is given here. They will say, “I will go also.” A very suggestive text. A mother and wife and the family prepare to go to church, the father stays at home and perhaps asks them to pray for him, but he doesn’t go. In a revival where many are coming to the Lord the application of this text can be made to the others. “I will go also.” That is what they are going to say, Zechariah says.

Oracle 10. Ten men shall follow one Jew (Zec 8:23 ). “Thus saith Jehovah of hosts: In those days, it shall come to pass, that ten men shall take hold, out of all the languages of the nations, they shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.” It was fulfilled partially then; it was fulfilled more in the time when Christ was upon earth; it was fulfilled when Paul the great Jew brought the gospel to the heathen world, and if we substitute a Christian here for a Jew, for a Christian is the real descendant of the Jew, it is being fulfilled now. This figure signified dependence and love, as a child clings to the parent; so, it applies to the great fact that the religion of the world comes through the Jews. This will have its larger fulfilment in the millennium. QUESTIONS

1. What was Zechariah’s fifth vision, what was the meaning of the symbolism, what the message of this vision, and to whom?

2. What was the promise of this message, and what was the meaning and application of Zec 4:10 ?

3. Is there a type of Christ in this vision? If so, what?

4. What was Zechariah’s sixth vision, what was the interpretation of its symbolism, and what was the purpose of the vision?

5. What was the seventh vision of Zechariah, what was the interpretation of its symbolism, and what the encouragement here to God’s people?

6. What was Zechariah’s eighth vision, what was the meaning of its symbolism, and where do we find in the New Testament the vision of which this is an analogue?

7. What great symbolic act follows these visions and what is the interpretation of it?

8. What was the subject discussed in Zechariah 7-8, what was the date of this revelation, how long after the visions and what had occurred in the meantime?

9. How did this question arise, what was the meaning of the question, what was Jehovah’s reply, and what was the meaning of it?

10. What history does the prophet then recite to them and what was its lesson?

11. What was the special theme of Zec 8:12 and what ten oracles of this chapter introduced by “Thus saith Jehovah”?

12. What was the meaning and application of Jehovah’s jealousy of Zec 8:2 ?

13. What was the meaning and application of Jehovah’s dwelling in Jerusalem?

14. What was the meaning and application of the young and aged in the city of Jerusalem (Zec 8:4-5 )?

15. What is the meaning of Zec 8:6 ?

16. What is the meaning of Zec 8:7-8 ?

17. What was the prophet’s exhortation and encouragement in Zec 8:9-13 ?

18. What promise does he make to them and what requirements does he make of them in Zec 8:14-17 ?

19. Why were the fasts mentioned in Zec 8:18-19 kept by the Jews in the captivity and what was the announcement here concerning them and why?

20. What was the promise of Zec 8:20-22 and what the fulfilment of it?

21. What was the meaning and application of Zec 8:23 ?

Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible

Zec 7:1 And 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;

Ver. 1. In the fourth year of king Darius ] Two years and a month after the former sermon. The word of the Lord was precious in those days. “The Lord gave the word”: but it cannot be said that “great was the company of those that preached it,” Psa 68:11 ; during the captivity they complained that there was no more any prophets; neither any among them that knew how long their misery should last. Soon after their return God stirred them up Haggai and Zechariah; and after that Malachi; and then there was Chathimath chazon, as the Jews phrase it, a sealing up or end of prophecy. Only they had Bath-col, as they call it, a voice from heaven, sometimes, as Mat 3:17 Joh 12:28 . This and the pool of Bethesda only were left them as extraordinary signs of God’s love to that people. But for a punishment of their killing the prophets (as they did this Zechariah between the porch and the altar, Mat 23:37 ) and stoning those that were sent unto them (as they did the other Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada), they had no more prophets till the arch-prophet and his forerunner, the Baptist, came. And now also by this long vacation of two years and a month, it appeareth that preachers were rare, and that sermons they had but seldom. Neither was it otherwise here in England at the first reformation; for to many churches (for want of preachers) readers were sent. Whence one of the martyrs wished that every able minister might have ten congregations committed to his charge till further provision could be made.

The word of the Lord came unto Zechariah ] The Lord is said to come to Balaam, Abimelech, Laban, &c. But he never entrusted his word to these profane persons; as he did to the holy prophets, of whom it is said, as here, “The word of the Lord came unto them.”

In the fourth day of the ninth month ] Which answereth to our November. Why the precise time of the prophecies is set down – See Trapp on “ Hag 1:1 “

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Zec 7:1-7

1In the fourth year of King Darius, the word of the LORD came to Zechariah on the fourth day of the ninth month, which is Chislev. 2Now the town of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regemmelech and their men to seek the favor of the LORD, 3speaking to the priests who belong to the house of the LORD of hosts, and to the prophets, saying, Shall I weep in the fifth month and abstain, as I have done these many years? 4Then the word of the LORD of hosts came to me, saying, 5Say to all the people of the land and to the priests, When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months these seventy years, was it actually for Me that you fasted? 6When you eat and drink, do you not eat for yourselves and do you not drink for yourselves? 7Are not these the words which the LORD proclaimed by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and prosperous along with its cities around it, and the Negev and the foothills were inhabited?’

Zec 7:1 fourth year of King Darius This is almost two years later than the initial eight visions (cf. Zec 1:1; Zec 1:7). The dating of this chapter is very specific.

the word of the LORD came to Zechariah This phrase introduces a new revelation. It also seems to mark the paragraph divisions of this chapter. Zechariah did not choose the time or subject. This is YHWH’s message (cf. Zec 7:4).

The Hebrew word dbr (BDB 182) is used regularly for God’s revelation (cf. Zec 1:1; Zec 1:6-7; Zec 4:6; Zec 7:1; Zec 7:4; Zec 7:7; Zec 7:12; Zec 8:1; Zec 8:18; Zec 9:1; Zec 11:11; Zec 12:1).

the fourth day of the ninth month This would possibly be December 7, 518 B.C. (cf. UBS, A Handbook on Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi, p. 180).

Chislev This is a month in the Babylonian calendar (cf. Neh 1:1), approximately November or December.

Zec 7:2

NASBthe town of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regemmelech

NKJV, NRSVthe people sent Sherezer with Regem-Melech

TEVthe people of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regemmelech

NJBBethel sent Sharezer

JPSOABethel-sharezer and Regem-melech. . .sent

PESHITTAsent to Bethel Sherezar and Rab-mag, and the king. . .had sent word to pray for him

The Hebrew is very ambiguous. There are several theories: (1) King James translates Bethel as the house of God, not a town; (2) RSV, TEV, NIV and JB have Bethel, which is a cultic city about twelve miles north of Jerusalem and the center of calf worship during 922-722 B.C.; (3) NEB combines Bethel and Sharezer into one name. Similar compounds using Sharezer are found in Jer 39:3, while compound names using Bethel are found in Babylonian documents and in the Elephantine Papyri (cf. W. F. Albright, Archaeology and the Religion of Israel, p. 169); (4) the term Regemmelech (BDB 920) means the king’s spokesman in Ugaritic (the Syriac translation has Rab-mag, which is an official title, cf. Jer 39:3; Jer 39:13), which implies that Darius or influential Jews sent two men (i.e., Bether-Sharezer and Regem-Melech).

to seek the favor of the LORD This is the INFINITIVE CONSTRUCT of the Piel VERB (BDB 318 II, KB 316), which denotes the cessation of hostility (cf. Dan 9:13), as well as the presence of God’s blessing and acceptance (cf. Psa 119:58). This same VERB is used in Zec 8:21-22 for what the nations will seek from God.

Zec 7:3 speaking to the priests. . .the prophets The priests would refer to those who had returned from Babylon with Zerubbabel and Joshua or Ezra. It is uncertain to whom the prophets refers. Haggai and Zechariah are the only ones known by name. I think both Joel and Obadiah were also early post-exilic prophets. Whomever they were these emissaries came to the representatives of the God asking about the continuance of a fast denoting the destruction of Jerusalem, now that the Jews had returned to Jerusalem.

Shall I weep in the fifth month This refers to a national day of mourning (fasting) which the Jews initiated to remember the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple (cf. 2 Kings 25).

NASBabstain

NKJVfast

NRSV, JPSOApractice abstinence

TEV, NJBfasting

PESHITTAseparating myself

The term (BDB 634) in the Niphal means to dedicate oneself to God, treat with awe, or fast. In this context fast is best. Context determines meaning!

as I have done these many years This again is an allusion to the 70 year prophecy of exile by Jeremiah (cf. Jer 25:8-11; Jer 29:10; Dan 9:2; Dan 9:24; Zec 7:5).

Zec 7:5 Say to all the people of the land This is an idiom for the common, non-leadership (cf. Jer 34:10; Hag 2:4) people of God’s covenant promise (i.e., Jews). For a good discussion of the way this idiom developed and changed through Israel’s history see Roland deVaux, Ancient Israel: Social Institutions, vol. 1, pp. 70-72.

seventh month This refers to another national fast day to remember the death of Gedaliah, the appointed governor (cf. 2Ki 25:25; Jer 40:1 to Jer 41:3). I think that possibly the ambiguous terms in Zec 7:2 and the fast days commended (cf. Zec 8:19) related to a delegation of Jews from Babylon to Jerusalem to discuss the status of the official ritual calendar.

was it actually for Me that you fasted God did not initiate these fasts and really they were done out of self pity more than worship (cf. Isa 1:11-12; Isa 58:1-12).

Zec 7:6 When you eat and drink This is sarcasm. They were fasting and/or feasting for themselves, not for God (cf. Isa 29:13; Col 2:20-23).

Zec 7:7 the former prophets See note at Zec 1:4.

when Jerusalem was inhabited and prosperous This refers to the time before the Babylonian exile. Nebuchadnezzar conducted four deportations.

1. 605 B.C. – Daniel and his three friends

2. 597 B.C. – Ezekiel and 10,000 skilled Jews

3. 586 B.C. – Jerusalem and the temple destroyed and most of the remaining population exiled

4. 582 B.C. – after the death of Gedaliah the Babylonian military returned and exiled everyone they could find

the Negev This (BDB 616) refers to the uninhabited pasture land in southern Judea.

the foothills This is literally shephelah (BDB 1050), which refers to the coastal plain along the Mediterranean.

At the time of Haggai and Zechariah neither of these geographical areas belonged to the returned Jews. Zerubbabel only controlled a small area around the city of Jerusalem.

Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

the fourth year. Two years later than the first literal prophecy in Zec 1:1.

king Darius. Darius (Hystaspis). See App-57,

the LORD. Hebrew. Jehovah. App-4.

Chisleu. Corresponding with our December. See App-51.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

Chapter 7

Now some men came to Zechariah with a question. While they were in Babylon they had been observing a couple of days of fasting. The day… they commemorated the day that the temple was destroyed by the Babylonian army. So they came to Zechariah with a question.

It came to pass in the fourth year of king Darius, that the word of the LORD came to Zechariah in the fourth day of the ninth month, even in Chisleu; When they had sent unto the house of God Sherezer and Regemmelech, and their men, to pray before the LORD, And 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? ( Zec 7:1-3 )

So during the seventy years of captivity, there in the fifth month there was this appointed fast commemorating the destruction of the temple.

Then came the word of the LORD of hosts unto me, saying ( Zec 7:4 ),

So Zechariah went to the Lord with it, and God answered Zechariah.

Speak unto all the people of the land, and unto the priests, saying, When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh month, even for those seventy years, did you really fast unto me, even to me? And when you did eat, and when you did drink, did you not eat for yourselves, and drink for yourselves? Should ye not hear the words which the LORD hath cried by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and in prosperity, and the cities thereof round about her, when the men inhabited the south and the plain? ( Zec 7:4-7 )

In other words, the Lord is saying, “Look, I never ordered these fasts to begin with.” They were weeping and fasting over the judgment that God had brought upon their fathers because their fathers had disobeyed the word of the Lord. But they had set them up as religious holidays, and they began to develop the ceremonies, and the religious rituals surrounding these holidays. Holidays that God had never ordained; holidays that God had never established. God did not recognize them.

Now to the present day there are among the Orthodoxy of the Jews the celebration still of these two days in the fifth month and the seventh month. But God still doesn’t look upon them. God said, “Look, wouldn’t it have been better to have just listened to what the prophets of God had said to your fathers rather than fasting and then going ahead and eating? It had been better that you just listened to what God had said.”

Now in the fifty-eighth chapter of Isaiah, before this took place, Isaiah spoke to the people concerning their fasting, beginning with verse Zec 7:3 . Oh, might as well begin with verse Zec 7:1 . “Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet.” He’s ordering Isaiah to do this. “And show my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins. Yet they seek me daily, they delight to know My ways, as a nation that did righteousness, and they forsook not the ordinance of their God. They ask of Me ordinances of justice; they take delight in approaching God. ‘Why have you fasted,’ they say, ‘and You have not seen us? Oh God we’ve fasted and You haven’t paid any attention to us. We’ve afflicted our souls and You didn’t take knowledge of it.'” You know the fasting and the… oh, there’s a word, I can’t think of it, the afflicting, starts with a “c,” but it’ll come to me. “But God You haven’t really taken knowledge of it.” “Behold,” and God answered them. “Why didn’t You, Lord, pay attention to us? We were fasting and afflicting ourselves, why didn’t You pay attention?”

The Lord said unto them, “Behold, in the day of your fast you find pleasure, and you exact of all your laborers.” You make everybody else work. “Behold you’re fasting for strife and debate, and to smite with a fist of wickedness. You shall not fast as you do this day, to make your voice to be heard on high.” You’re not really fasting as unto the Lord, you’re taking pleasure in these fast days; it’s not a true affliction. “Is it such a fast that I have chosen? Did I choose this kind of a fast?” The Lord said, “A day for a man to afflict his soul? Is it to bow down his head as a bulrush and spread sackcloth and ashes under him?” These were the way they were afflicting their souls, you know, lying on burlap or camel skin, which is very rough and coarse, and putting ashes on themselves. God said, “Did I ask you to do this? Do you call this a fast that is an acceptable day to the Lord? Is this not the fast that I have chosen? Isn’t this the way I would rather have you fast, to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke. That’s,” God said, “the kind of fast I want you to do. Just set at liberty those that are bound, your slaves and all, turn them free. Isn’t the fast that I have chosen to deal your bread to the hungry and that you bring the poor that are cast out into thy house? If you want to really fast to the Lord, prepare a great meal, and call the poor in and feed the poor.” God says, “I’d like that kind of a fast, I’ll accept that kind of a fast. When you see the naked, that you cover him; and that you hide not yourself from thine own flesh. Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thy health shall spring forth speedily, and thy righteousness shall go before thee; and the glory of the Lord shall be thy reward. Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer. Thou shalt cry, and He shall say, ‘Here I am.’ And if thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, and the putting forth of the finger, and the speaking of vanity” ( Isa 58:1-9 ).

So people can get into religious rituals, fastings even, that God didn’t order.

Now they said, “Shall we continue?” God said, “I didn’t ask you to do it in the first place. You know, they weren’t true fasts unto Me. It would be better if you would take a day where you’d just really sit down and hearken unto what happened, and realize that what happened happened because of their disobedience. Here you’re grieving over the loss of the temple; you should be grieving over the unrepentant heart of your fathers that caused the loss of the temple. You should be grieving over the fact that they wouldn’t listen to God. So you’ve set up your own holidays, but I didn’t order these holidays.”

Wait a minute! Lord shall we still observe December twenty-fifth? You say, “All right, stay off of that. You’re stepping on my toes.” When did God ever order man to observe the birthday of Jesus Christ? Shall we still observe the tenth month, and the fourth month Lord, or the twelfth month, and the fourth month? You see, these are holidays that men have established. We have our Lent season. God never ordered a Lent season. God never ordered an Ash Wednesday, a Good Friday, or a meatless Friday. These are the impositions of man. You might think about that. Because when God was questioned concerning these holidays that they had set up, God did not really recognize them, He said, “I didn’t ask you to do that. Better that you just really hear the words which the Lord has cried by the prophets when Jerusalem was inhabited and prosperous, and the cities around about her were inhabited.”

And the word of the LORD came to Zechariah, saying, Thus speaketh the LORD of hosts, saying, Execute true judgment, and show mercy, compassions to every man his brother ( Zec 7:8-9 ):

That’s what God really desires. You say, “I want to fast,” but God says, “Hey, I would rather you just be fair, you be honest, you be merciful and you be compassionate to each other.”

Don’t oppress the widow, nor the fatherless, nor the stranger, or the poor; and let none of you imagine evil against his neighbor in his heart ( Zec 7:10 ).

These are the things that God will take notice of. These are the things that God will delight in. These are the things that God is asking you to do–not to fast, but to do these things.

But [the Lord said,] they refused to hearken, they pulled away the shoulder, they stopped their ears, that they should not hear ( Zec 7:11 ).

These were the things that the prophets were telling their fathers, and they wouldn’t listen to them.

Yea, they made their hearts as an adamant stone, lest they should hear the law, and the words which the LORD of hosts hath sent in his Spirit by the former prophets: therefore there came great wrath from the LORD of hosts. Therefore it is come to pass, that as he cried, and they would not hear; so they cried, and I would not hear, saith the LORD of hosts ( Zec 7:12-13 ).

Isn’t that an awesome thing? God said, “Look, I cried unto you and you wouldn’t listen. I was asking you to be fair, to be honest, to be compassionate, to be merciful, to take care of the widow, and the stranger and the poor, to clothe the naked, to feed the hungry. I cried unto you, but you wouldn’t answer Me. Therefore, when you cried unto Me, I didn’t answer you.”

“To obey is better than to sacrifice.” It is important that we be obedient to the Word of the Lord. That we, each one, tonight make the application to ourselves. That we give ear, give heed to the Word of God, so that when we are in need, and we are in trouble, when we cry unto God, that He will listen to us.

So they were scattered with a whirlwind among the nations whom they knew not. Thus the land was desolate after them, that no man passed through nor returned: for they laid [that is, the Babylonian army, laid] the pleasant land desolate ( Zec 7:14 ). “

Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary

Zec 7:1. And 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;

Gods prophets were not always in the spirit, and when the Word of God came to them, it was a notable day, and they marked it in their diary. I think that we, too, who are not prophets can remember some special time when Gods Word was peculiarly precious to us. We can put down the fourth day of the ninth month.

Zec 7:2-3. When they had sent unto the house of God Sherezer and Regemmelech, and their men, to pray before the LORD, And 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?

On that day the Jews had kept a fast to commemorate the terrible calamity which happened to the temple in the time of Nebuchadnezzar. Now these people were living away in Babylon, and it occurred to them that, as the temple was now building and Jerusalem was restored, it was a question whether they ought to keep that fast any longer, it was not kept by divine command. It was a fast of their own inventing, and the question was whether they ought not to abandon it when things had so changed; so they sent messengers to the temple to inquire of the priests and of the prophets, and to pray to God himself. When we have a difficult question lying on the conscience, it is well to settle it, and not allow it to rest on the heart unsatisfied.

Zec 7:4-5. Then came the word of the LORD of hosts unto me, saying, Speak unto all the people of the land, and to the priests, saying, When ye fasted and mourned in the filth and seventh month, even those seventy years, did ye at all fast unto me, even to me?

There is the point. You can fast to self. You can fast to your own pride. If we have no thought of honouring God in our fasting, there is nothing in it. The question is, Did ye at all fast unto me, even to me?

Zec 7:6. And when ye did eat, and when ye did drink, did not ye eat for yourselves, and drink for yourselves?

If a holy feast is not kept with a view to God, it is not kept at all. It is a feast to yourselves. You have missed the mark altogether.

Zec 7:7. Should ye not hear the words which the LORD hath 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?

Well, what was that word? Zechariah has it fresh from God, and he states it.

Zec 7:8-10. And the word of the LORD came unto Zechariah, saying, Thus speaketh the LORD of hosts, saying, Execute true judgment, and shew mercy and compassions every man to his brother: And 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.

This is what God said most just, most fit for God to require of his people.

Zec 7:11-12. But they refused to hearken, and pulled away the shoulder, and stopped their ears, they should not hear. Yea, they made their hearts as an adamant stone lest they should hear the law, and the words which the LORD of hosts hath sent in his spirit by the former prophets: therefore came a great wrath from the LORD of hosts.

And well there might. When God requires what is so just and so commendable, and men will not yield to it, and will not even hear about it, they deserve that God should grow wrathful with them.

Zec 7:13. Therefore it is come to pass, that as he cried, and they would not hear; so they cried, and I would not hear saith the LORD of hosts:

The punishment of sin seems to be according to the sin itself. If men will not hear God, neither will God hear them.

Zec 7:14. But 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.

Now, in the next chapter, the prophet goes on to speak not so much of the peoples sin as of Gods resolve to have mercy upon them. He speaks with gentle warnings, and with loving promises.

This exposition consisted of readings from Zechariah 7; Zec 8:9-22.

Fuente: Spurgeon’s Verse Expositions of the Bible

Zec 7:1-3

TEACHING ABOUT WORSHIP

Zec 7:1-14 has been called A Call to Civic Duty. We cannot subscribe to this summary of the prophetic message contained in this chapter, but we mention it to underscore a truth which shines through both chapters seven and eight, namely that outward formal religious observances unrelated to present life are an affront to God. His promises are to those whose relationship to Him makes a real difference in their relationship to their fellowmen.

QUESTIONS ABOUT FASTING . . . Zec 7:1-3

On December 4, 518 B.C., just over two years after the beginning of Zechariahs prophetic ministry, the Jews who lived in Bethel sent two envoys, Sharezer and Regem-melech, to inquire of the priests of Jehovah concerning the continuation of the fasts which for seventy years had commemorated the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. Bethel is located east of an imaginary line running north from Jerusalem to Nablus.

Zerr: This chapter begins (Zec 7:1) two years later than the beginning of the book. Darius in this verse was the first man of that name to reign who was a Persian. It was in the second year of his reign that the work on the temple was resumed after having been stopped for a number of years (Ezr 4:24), and it was in his sixth year that It was completed (Ezr 6:15). Hence, the present chapter starts midway of the great work that was performed after the prophets Haggai and Zechariah aroused the builders with their exhortations and warnings. According to Ezr 3:2 Ezr 3:6 the altar of sacrifices was built, some time before the temple was completed. The interest in the service of the Lord was indicated by sending these men to Jerusalem to pray (Zec 7:2) on behalf of the work.

Bethels ruins were discovered by Robinson and are now identified with the village of Betin. Formerly inhabited by Canaanite kings, it became home to a number of Jews following the captivity. In Zechariahs day, as in the time of the pre-exilic divided kingdom, Bethel lay just south of the border that divided Judea and Israel. In New Testament days the boundary between Judea and Samaria ran south of the village. This has led some to the erroneous conclusion that Zechariahs visitors were Samaritans, while in point of fact they were Jews returned from Babylon. They had settled in the northernmost part of what was originally the land of Benjamin and they had come to Jerusalem for instruction concerning the requirements of worship on the part of the returnees.

(Zec 7:3) The question asked is, Should I weep in the fifth month, separating myself as I have these so many years? The concern is for the facts which related to the captivity.

Zerr: These men in Zec 7:3 seem to have been either confused about the whole situation, notwithstanding they were sent to pray for the work, or they were acting without sincerity after arriving there. Now they protest to the priests and prophets that there is no use that I (meaning the people) should offer these services now. when the same had been done through many years and they had been rejected.

In the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month, which marked the nineteenth anniversary of Nebuchadnezzars ascending the throne of Babylon, he sent his servant to Jerusalem to burn the temple and main buildings of the city.

In the seventh month, apparently of the same year, a member of the Babylonian royal family had assassinated the Jewish governor, Gedaliah, of Judah, and the Jews who were with him.

In memory of those two tragic events the Jews had fasted twice a year on the days marking their occurrence. It had been a burdensome experience for a people in captivity. The people of Beth-el now want to know if it is required to continue the practice.

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

The third message of Zechariah was uttered nearly two years later. It was a fourfold answer to an inquiry made by the people concerning the necessity for observing certain fasts.

The history of these fasts is contained in 2Ki 25:1-30. One was established in the tenth month, in connection with the siege of the city. The next, which occurred in the fourth month, commemorated the taking of the city. The third, held in the fifth month, was in memory of the burning of the city, and the last was in the seventh month, the month in which Gedaliah was murdered.

The inquiry was confined to the fast of the fifth month, whether it was necessary to continue its observance. The answer of the prophet was delivered in four statements of what Jehovah had said to him. The first of these answers declared that the fasts had been instituted, not by divine command, but entirely on the initiative of the people themselves. It declared also that they should consider the messages which had been delivered to them before the occasion which gave rise to the fasts of which they now complained.

The second answer reminded them that God sought justice and mercy rather than the observance of self-appointed fasts. It also reminded them that they had refused to hear the call of justice, and therefore all the evil things which had befallen the city had resulted. The inference was that had they been obedient, the occasions for these fasts would never have arisen.

Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible

the Penalty of Injustice and Cruelty

Zec 7:1-14

During their captivity the Jews observed four feasts. That of the 10th month recalled the first enclosure of Jerusalem by the enemies lines; of the 4th the capture of the city; of the 5th the destruction by fire of the Temple; of the 7th the murder of Gedaliah. The national life was depressed by this constant memory of disaster. It seemed incongruous to act thus, when the Holy City was rising from the dust. Surely the lamentations which were befitting in Babylon, were out of place now. A deputation was therefore sent to inquire the views of the leaders. Zechariah gave four separate answers to the request. In Zec 7:4-7 he suggests that as these fasts had been set up by themselves, they were at liberty to discontinue them, and the main question was whether they were pondering the teachings and warnings of the older prophets. In Zec 7:8-14 he implored them not to yield to the obtuseness and disobedience of their fathers, in order that no second catastrophe should cast them back to the disasters they had suffered.

Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary

Chapter 7

The Need Of Reality

The opening date for the second division of the prophecy of Zechariah is a little more than two years later than what we have been considering. In the meantime royal permission had been given for the completion of the temple, and the work went on with some degree of energy. See Ezra, 5th chapter. Already there had been some effort made to revive the ancient feasts, and likewise to keep the more modern fasts. Concerning one of the latter, a deputation of Jews came to consult Zechariah and the elders, both of the priests and prophets. Their Chaldean names tell that they had been born in captivity. As representatives of the people, Sherezer and Regem-melech, and their men, came to pray before the Lord, and 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? (vers. 2, 3).

There seems to have been propriety in the question. For the fast of the fifth month, as also for the fasts of the fourth, seventh and tenth months (chap. 8:19), there was no direct authority in the word of God, and the returned remnant had been learning to inquire, What saith the Scriptures? as to both command and teaching.

During their Babylonian sojourn they had kept the four fasts mentioned, commemorating various events in their past sad history, all connected with their punishment for their sins. None need doubt the piety that prompted the observance of these special seasons of humiliation before God.

The only trouble was, that formality so readily took the place of reality and genuine self-humbling in the presence of the Lord. On the tenth day of the fifth month Nebuzar-adan burnt the temple and the city of Jerusalem. On the yearly anniversary of that solemn event they fasted and wept, beseeching the Lord to have mercy, and restore the house and the city.

Naturally, now that they were again in the midst of Jerusalems ruins, and their prayer seemed answered in measure before their eyes as the house of God neared completion, the question of the righteousness of continuing the self-appointed fast of the fifth month came before them.

The word of the Lord of hosts came through Zechariah in reply. But there was no legislation regarding the fast at all: He neither forbade nor enjoined it. In itself, such a fast was without positive scriptural authority. On the other hand, it was in full keeping with the general tenor of the Word. It was extra-scriptural, rather than un-scriptural. If the people met in true self-judgment and brokenness of spirit before God on that day, or any day, it would have been acceptable. If they met simply as legally observing a fast which, after all, He had never appointed, it was a weariness of the flesh, and worthless in His sight. Therefore Zechariah presses home the need of reality. What had been their object and condition of soul as they kept the fasts in the past? When they commemorated the burning of the temple in the fifth month (2Ki 25:8; Jer 52:12), and the death of the faithful Gedaliah in the seventh month (2Ki 25:25; Jer 41:1, 2),35 did they at all fast unto Jehovah all the years of the captivity?

When, on the other hand, they kept the appointed feasts, in place of the fasts, was it His glory they sought? Or did they simply come together for social enjoyment, eating and drinking, without one thought of honoring Him whose power and grace they were supposed to be remembering? (vers. 6, 7).

Surely, if all before had been unreal and hollow, now, with such marked evidences both of divine grace and government before them, they should turn to God with all their hearts, remembering the words which He had cried by the former prophets, who had testified to their fathers before Jerusalem was destroyed, and when they dwelt therein in peace, and prosperity was in the land (ver. 7).

This is all the answer that was given for the moment. It was left to them to decide whether they should keep the fast or not. And this is most significant, and has a voice for us whose lot is cast in a similar day, if we will hear it, emphasizing the fact that mere formality will never do for God. He must see a true turning to Himself if He would find delight in the gathering together of His people. There may not always be chapter and verse for every practice, but God will graciously accept all that springs from true self-judgment, and that is not opposed to the plain letter of His Word. It has become the fashion in some places to ask, Where is the scripture for a Bible-reading, or where the direct verse for gathering the young together to teach them the knowledge of the Bible, and thus to lead them to Christ? We need not be troubled by such cold-hearted queries as these. Rather let the Sunday-school worker ask himself, or herself, Why do I thus labor among the children? Is it with me but a weariness of the flesh, and a matter of form? Has it become simply legal drudgery, which I carry on because such work is now customary? Or do I seek thus to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ? Is my purpose so to minister Him to those young in years that their tender hearts may be drawn to Himself ere they become hardened by the deceitfulness of sin? If this be the case, let there be no further question, but go on joyfully with your service, doing it heartily, as unto the Lord.

The same principle applies to the meeting appointed for the study of the Word, among believers. There is no direct scripture that such meetings are to be held at stated intervals; but there is plenty in the way of scripture warrant and example to make it clear that when such meetings are convened by earnest, loyal-hearted saints, who come together hungering for the precious truth of God, and ever letting it sit in judgment on them and on their ways, it is truly pleasing in His sight. Otherwise it is but a work of the flesh-religious flesh, no doubt, but flesh still, for all that.

And what has been said is equally true of the assembly-meeting of 1 Cor. 14 and the meeting for the breaking of bread of 1 Cor. 11 and Act 20:7. It is quite possible to sit down at the Lords table, where the bread and wine speak of His body given and blood shed for us, and yet not eat the Lords Supper at all, because the mind is so fully occupied with other things that there is no true remembrance of Christ. One may go from the meeting-room eased in conscience because he has not neglected the table of the Lord, and superciliously regarding himself as superior to Christians whose light and privileges seem of a lower order, when all the time there has been nothing for God in it all, but the whole thing was a perfunctory and empty ceremony, detestable in His eyes, if indeed there has not been an actual eating and drinking of judgment to oneself.

But if there is to be reality when saints are gathered together, there must be righteousness in their daily lives. So Zechariah again speaks the word of the Lord, saying, Execute true judgment, and show mercy and compassions every man to his brother: and 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 (vers. 9, 10). Solemn words are these! Would that they had been oftener called to mind by the people of God in all ages! He has said, Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees! (Isa 10:1), yet how frequently has ecclesiastical authority been invoked to enforce the most palpably cruel and unholy decisions! Oh, the crimes that have been committed in the name of the Lord and His truth! The cruelties of those who have vaunted the exclusive mind of the Lord will make a terrible and a humiliating record at the judgment-seat of Christ. When will saints learn that nothing is of God which is unholy; that nothing is right which is not righteous; that nothing is bound, or ratified, by the Just One which in itself is unjust! Neither is anything to be owned as having divine sanction which outrages the mercy and compassions of Christ.

Because Israel forgot all this, and made their hearts as an adamant stone, the former prophets had been sent to warn them, and they would not hear; therefore great wrath came upon them. As they were indifferent to the cry of the distressed, and calloused as to the sorrows of the needy, God gave them over to learn in bitterness of soul what distress and need really meant. In the day of their anguished cry, He refused to hearken, even as they had refused to hear His voice of entreaty and warning. So they had been scattered with a whirlwind among all the nations (vers. 11-14). Would their children learn from the sad experiences of the past, or must they too be broken and driven forth because of indifference to the claims of the Holy and the True?

To Christians of the present day the same questions may well be put. May God give us grace to profit by the failures of the past, and to walk softly and in charity, according to truth, in the little while ere the Lord Jesus comes again!

Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets

II. QUESTIONS CONCERNING CERTAIN FASTS

CHAPTER 7

1. The question (Zec 7:1-3)

2. The reproof (Zec 7:4-7)

3. The lessons of the past (Zec 7:8-14)

Zec 7:1-3. Nearly two years had passed since Zechariahs great visions, and during that time the people had been obedient to the vision and built the house. Soon the ancient worship was to be resumed. A question arose in the minds of the people concerning certain Jewish days of fasting. The principal day was the day set apart in memory of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians. It was kept on the ninth day of the fifth month (the ninth of Ab, still kept by the Jews). The question came to the prophet through two men who bear foreign names–Sherezer (Prince of the Treasury) and Regemelech (the official of the king). The question was, Should I weep in the fifth month, separating myself, as I have done these many years? They had wept in Babylon on that day Psa 137:1-9.

Zec 7:4-7. The word of the Lord comes now to the prophet. The message is for all the people and for the priests. The two fasts are mentioned. The one in the fifth month as already stated was the one in remembrance of the destruction of the city. The fast of the seventh month was kept on the anniversary of the murder of Gedaliah at Mizpah Jer 41:1-18. But why did they keep these fast days? Why do they keep these days indeed still? The Lord asks, Is it unto Me, unto Me? No, it was not for the honor and glory of God, but their own selfish interests were at the bottom of it. Indeed God had never asked them to fast. These institutions were man-made, and highly displeasing to Jehovah. And is it not so now, not alone with the Jews but with Christendom? oh, the man-made institutions and outward observances which only dishonor God and are for the selfish interests of the people! The eating and drinking, the fast being over, was not unto the Lord, but unto themselves. It was obedience the Lord required. Had they listened to the words spoken by the prophets they would not have been in captivity, there would have been no need for a solemn fast. Unbelief was at the bottom of it all, and so it is still with the nation in dispersion.

Zec 7:8-14. Here are moral lessons and instructions. They were to execute true judgment, show mercy and compassion, oppress not the widow nor the fatherless, the poor or the stranger. These were His demands in the past, but their fathers did not listen, and as a result the judgment of the Lord came upon them and they were scattered with a whirlwind. History has repeated itself. What happened in the past happened again.

Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)

Marg

ninth month, Chisleu i.e. December.

Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes

the fourth: Zec 1:1, Ezr 6:14, Ezr 6:15, Hag 2:10, Hag 2:20

Chisleu: Answering to part of November and part of December. Neh 1:1

Reciprocal: Exo 1:1 – General Zec 6:9 – General

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

IN THE FIRST verse of chapter 7, we find another date given; almost two years later than that of the visions just recorded, and the prophecies of Haggai. These fresh prophecies were occasioned by the arrival of certain men with questions as to the observance of fasts, and we notice that we pass from the record of visions to a series of plain declarations of God’s message. We now find repeated nor, ‘I lifted up mine eyes’, but rather, ‘The word of the Lord came’.

The question raised by these men concerned a fast in the fifth month which had been observed for many years. From Jer 52:12, we learn that it was in that month the Babylonian army had burned Solomon’s magnificent temple, and wrecked Jerusalem. Now once more the house of the Lord was being built, if not entirely finished, so was it suitable that they should still observe the fast? A very natural question!

The answer of God through Zechariah linked with this fast another in the seventh month, which apparently was in memory of the murder of Gedaliah and others, and the flight of the remnant, left in the land, into Egypt, as recorded in 2Ki 25:25, 2Ki 25:26. These tragedies were commemorated with fasting and tears, during the seventy years captivity. As far as we can discern, no direct answer was given to the question they raised: instead another question was raised with them. Did they have Jehovah before their minds in their observances or only themselves? And when the fast was over, did they return to their eating and drinking just enjoying themselves? Did they really fast, enquired the Lord, ‘unto Me, even to Me?’

Here is deeply important instruction for ourselves. We may put it thus: In our observances and service a right motive is everything. We may diligently observe the Lord’s Supper on the first day of the week, diligently preach the Gospel, or minister to the saints; but are we doing it with God Himself, revealed in Christ, before us, or are we just pursuing an agreeable ritual and maintaining our own reputations in it all? A searching question, which the writer had better ask himself as well as the readers ask themselves.

If the people had kept the Lord before them and observed His words through the former prophets, things would have been far otherwise. And what was His word now through Zechariah, but just what it had been through them. Take Isaiah’s first chapter as an example. He accused the people of moral corruption, whilst maintaining ceremonial exactitude. In verses Zec 7:11-14, of our chapter the men who enquired are reminded of this, and are plainly challenged as to the present attitude of themselves and the people of their day, as we see in verses Zec 7:8-10. The moral evils that had wrecked the nation were still working amongst the people that had returned to the land. A remnant may return but the inveterate tendency to develop the old evils remains. Let us never forget that.

Fuente: F. B. Hole’s Old and New Testaments Commentary

Zec 7:1. This chapter begins two years later than the beginning of the book. Darius in this verse was the first man of that name to reign who was a Persian. It was in the second year of his reign that the work on the temple was resumed after having been stopped for a number of years (Ezr 4:24), and it was in his sixth year that It was completed (Ezr 6:15). Hence, the present chapter starts midway of the great work that was performed after the prophets Haggai and Zechariah aroused the builders with their exhortations and warnings,

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

Zec 7:1-3. The word of the Lord came unto Zechariah, &c. In this and the next chapter is contained a third and distinct revelation made to Zechariah, about two years after the former; of which the occasion and matter are as follows: A considerable progress having, by this time, been made in the rebuilding of the temple, and affairs going on pretty smoothly, the hopes of the Jewish nation began to revive, and a deputation was sent to inquire of the priests and prophets, whether it was Gods will that they should still observe the fast, which had been instituted on account of the destruction of the city and temple by the Chaldeans. To this inquiry, the prophet is directed in these chapters how to answer; and his answer is given not all at once, but, as it seems, by piece-meal, and at several times. For here are four distinct discourses that have reference to this case. In the fourth day of the ninth month, even in Chisleu This month corresponded with the latter part of our November and the beginning of December. When they had sent The Hebrew verb here used is in the singular number, he had sent, or one had sent: but our translators very properly interpret it plurally, by the figure termed an enallage of the number, which is often used in the Hebrew; and the Vulgate renders it in the same sense. This is understood by some to be spoken of the Jews who still remained in Chaldea; but it seems more probable that those are meant who dwelt in the towns or villages at some distance from Jerusalem. These sent unto the house of God That, is unto the temple, where the building was still carried on with success; Sherezer and Regem-melech Men of note among them; and their men Servants, or persons of less rank, who accompanied them; to pray before the Lord To offer up prayers for themselves and their friends. The temple was the only place where they could offer sacrifices and oblations, to which solemn prayers were always wont to be joined. And to speak unto the priests and prophets It was the office of the priests to resolve any doubts that might arise respecting the worship of God, or any part of his law, whether moral or ceremonial, and the people were commanded to consult them, and to act according to their determination. And since the Prophets Haggai and Zechariah were at this time residing in Jerusalem, it was proper to inquire of them, who might probably give them an immediate answer to their inquiry from God himself. Should I weep in the fifth month The fast in the fifth month was kept because in that month, answering to our month of July, the city and temple were burned by the Chaldeans, 2Ki 25:8; in memory of which grievous judgment, the people instituted a solemn fast, which, it appears, they had observed from that time until the times here spoken of; refraining from all worldly business and pleasure, and employing themselves in the religious exercise of prayer and humiliation: see Zec 12:12-14. The question they now proposed, was, whether it were proper for them still to continue this fast, when the ecclesiastical and civil state was in a great measure restored, and the judgment for which they mourned was removed.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Zec 7:1. In the fourth year of Darius Hystaspes, in the ninth month, the end of November, a deputation went from Babylon to Jerusalem, a long journey in the beginning of winter, to enquire into and promote the work of the Lord.

Zec 7:2. They sent to the house of God, now so far finished as to be open for public worship, Sherezer, a Persian, prfectum Thesauri, the lord treasurer, and Regem-melech, that is, duke, thane, or lieutenant to the king, and their men, to pray before the Lord. Both these deputies came attended with a royal guard, being high in office at the court, as appears from their Persian titles, and their being sent by Darius at the request of the jews who remained in Babylon, that they might officially know the affairs of their own nation.

Zec 7:3. Speak to the priests, officiating and attending worship in the house of the Lord, and to the prophets. We know of no prophets by name, except Haggai and Malachi. But we know for certainty that the holy patriarchs delivered at their altars, expositions of the law, recitations of the noble acts of the Lord, as in many of the psalms, accompanied with moral inductions. Job, and his three princely friends, were all prophets of this character. Good men, priests, levites, and others prophesied after the public service was closed in the courts of the temple, in public gardens, and in other places. Thus David says, I will declare thy righteousness in the great congregation. But the great synagogue admitted no man into the higher list of inspired seers, except those to whom the Word of the Lord came.

Should I weep in the fifth month, in painful remembrance of the burning of the temple, and the loss of national existence. Jer 52:12-13. The new temple being now almost finished, are not those sorrows turned into joy?The jews had other fasts, as well as feasts, commemorative of their past afflictions. They had one for the assassination of their prince Gedaliah, and his court, whose murder took away all their hopes. Jeremiah 41. They also fasted in the tenth month, when the Chaldeans, after the defeat of their army, formed their lines about Jerusalem. The jews then fasted and wept indeed. 2Ki 25:1. They fasted also in the fourth month, when the enemy took the city by storm, and shed the blood of all ages and sexes like water, and burned the temple of the Lord. Mic 3:12, 2Ch 36:17-21.

Zec 7:7. When Jerusalem was inhabited and in prosperity. When the population was so great that the more barren plain to the south, and all the hill country of Judea was full of people, making the deserts laugh with vineyards and harvests. joshabeth is rendered in some versions sitting; the idea of prosperity among the jews being described as sitting under their own vine, and their own figtree. Ancient coins were often struck, with a goddess sitting at ease, to designate peace and prosperity.

Zec 7:12. They made their hearts as an adamant stone. shammair, . Ezekiel says the adamant was harder than a flint: chap. 3:9. What then can this be but the diamond? When Bergman first attempted to assay the diamond, he found that the particles entered the steel of the hammer and the anvil. Having now been fully assayed by fire, it is found to be purely carbon of the most obdurate formation. A diamond, as used by glaziers, will keep its point for many years.

Zec 7:14. I scattered them with a whirlwind. vaeisaarem. This word does not fall within the rules of Hebrew Grammar, being partly in Kal, and partly in Niphal. Be that as it may, it is a sublime metaphor, expressing six English words in one. God scattered the jews to Media in the east, and Greece in the west.

REFLECTIONS.

The arrival of those Persian noblemen in Jerusalem, and no doubt with some jews in their train, to make enquiries, gave opportunity to our prophet to give a holy and edifying answer to men who came so far to enquire of God. The fasts to heaven were not in dispute; it was the manner of keeping them which formed the touchstone of the heart. A country once so populous, once so extensively cultivated, and adorned with an enlivened cosmography, now ruined and depopulated, must involve some enquiries respecting the equity of the divine Being. The jews had fasted amidst their feasts, while they had forced the widows to fast without a feast.

Let it be fully noted here, as in twenty other places, that as the earth is the Lords, and as the harvests are his gifts, so the blind, the lame, and the weak have just and equal claims for bread. Therefore, as the jews were deaf to the cries of hunger, and to the admonitions of their prophets, Zec 7:13; so the Lord was deaf to them when they cried in bitterness of soul, while the besieging army was at their gates. What other ministry could be expected to emanate from a holy God? The true prophets ever spake as the voice of the rod, and as the voice of conscience. The people expected sermons like these from their seers.

Here then are models for you, oh evangelists, preachers, and learned scribes. Can you, after a week of riot, of races, gaming and drunkenness; can you after gross cases of bastardy, seduction, and public wickedness address your auditories in affable dissuasives from vice, and mild persuasives to virtue? Can you approve of the English Preacher, a collection of a hundred sermons from the great preachers of the age, by Enfield, the unitarian? Do our lawyers talk like this editor in their impeachments at the bar? Oh, my brethren, speak of grace in gracious words; but against our reigning crimes let the sanctuary give a fair stroke, to save yourselves, and those that hear you. Cursed be the man that doeth the work of the Lord deceitfully.

This terrible sermon is followed in the next chapter with a supplement, to heal the wounds made by the sword of the Spirit.

Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Zec 7:1-7 f. The original account of the question about the fasting and Zechariahs answer has been considerably amplified by the insertion of other prophecies, probably later compositions, though they bear some resemblance to the style of Haggai. Note the editorial introductions to the paragraphs beginning Zec 7:8 and Zec 8:1, which are unnecessary if Zechariah is the speaker throughout. The date is Dec. 4, 518. In Zec 7:2-7 we have an excerpt from Zechariahs own narrative, the beginning of which is lost. The text of Zec 7:2 a is in confusion, and correction can be only conjectural. Apparently originally only two people were mentioned by name; the first, the sender, being Bethel Sharezer, and the second, the person sent, being Regem-melech (the names are probably corrupt). The sender of the deputation doubtless speaks in the name of the community, and is presumably the governor; moreover, since he is interested in merely Jewish fasts, he must be a Jew. This points to Zerubbabel. Sharezer may have been part of his Bab. name, but we have no evidence for this. It is improbable that a question would be formally asked in Dec. about a fast to be observed during the following Aug., and Zec 7:5 implies that the question concerned the fast of Oct. also, while in Zec 8:19 four fasts are mentioned, viz. in July, Aug., Oct., and Jan. The question put on Dec. 4 presumably had at least special reference to this last; it must therefore have been mentioned. Probably the list of fasts in Zec 7:3; Zec 7:5 has been accidentally cut down. The fasts mentioned seem to have been instituted in commemoration of the following national calamities: on July 9, 586, Jerusalem was taken (Jer 39:2); on Aug. 7 the city and Temple were burnt (2Ki 25:8); in Oct. Gedaliah was murdered (Jeremiah 41); on Jan. 10 the siege of Jerusalem began (2Ki 25:1). The question about the fasting, since it concerned a matter of torah, would probably be addressed to the priests only, and to the prophets being added because Zechariah gave the answer. The fasts, he maintained, had not betokened any real repentance on the part of the people, but had been due to a superstitious belief that their calamities might be mechanically removed. There had been no more thought of glorifying God by the fasts than by eating and drinking, Zec 7:7 (note italics) is mutilated; the LXX reads, Are not these the words, etc. The South is the Negeb (p. 32), the lowland is the Shephelah (p. 31).

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

A Question Answered Negatively

(vv. 1-7)

The visions and prophecies of the first six chapters are connected with the eighth month of the second year of the reign of Darius (Zec 1:1). It is two years later when the question of Zec 7:3 arises. In this chapter the Lord answers the question negatively, and gives the positive answer in Zec 8:1-23.

The question is asked by men sent to the house of the Lord from Bethel (JND). They had been sent to pray and to ask the priests and prophets in Jerusalem, “Should I weep in the fifth month and fast as I have done for so many years?” The fast of the fifth month was in memory of the destruction of the first temple. Now the temple was being rebuilt (it was finished within two years after this: Ezr 6:15), was it necessary to continue this fast?

Bethel was one of the two centers where Jeroboam set up his idolatrous worship (1Ki 12:28-29) when he separated the ten tribes from Judah and Benjamin. The Assyrian took the ten tribes into captivity before the temple was destroyed (2Ki 17:6), yet here we find men of Bethel who were mourning the destruction of Jerusalem’s temple. It is good to see this evidence of their being drawn back to Judah and the center of worship that God had established in Israel. God’s temple now meant enough to them that they were mourning over its destruction, and were glad to see it being rebuilt.

The Lord answered this question through Zechariah. The answer was addressed not only to those who asked the question, but to all the people of the land, and to the priests particularly, who were commonly the representatives of the people. Yet the question is only partially answered in this chapter: the positive side of the answer awaits Zec 8:1-23. The answer begins (v. 5) in the form of another question, “When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months, during those seventy years, did you really fast for Me – for Me?” The Lord adds a fast in the seventh month, which was another fast in memory of the murder of Gedaliah by Ishmael (Jer 41:1-2). The Lord makes it a serious question as to whether these fasts were out of concern for His glory or whether Israel had selfish motives. On the other hand also, when instead of fasting they ate and drank, were they not doing this entirely for themselves and not eating and drinking to the glory of God? Whether or not the fasts had begun with proper motives, they did not continue that way. They had degenerated into mere formal and selfish observations, just as later on we read of “the Jews’ Passover” (Joh 2:13) and “the Jews’ feast of Tabernacles” (Joh 7:2), though these had been called “the feasts of the Lord” when instituted in Lev 23:4.

In verse 7 the Lord reminds Israel that He had spoken by the prophets in this same way to the nation before the captivity took place “when Jerusalem and the cities around it were inhabited and prosperous.” Isaiah’s prophecy is most pointed in this matter (Isa 58:3-7). He wrote in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, previous to Judah’s captivity. They had before ignored God’s messages and suffered for it. Let them take a warning that they may rightly respond now!

A FURTHER MESSAGE FROM GOD

(vv. 8-14)

The message from verses 4-7 has been one of serious reproof. The Lord gives another message beginning with verse 8, this time adding exhortation as to the proper attitude to accompany fasting, while showing that this attitude had been lacking in Israel. As a result the people were scattered among the nations.

If their fast was honestly for God, then they would show it in their attitude toward others. They would execute true judgment, being fairminded in their dealings, which would require showing mercy and compassion. They are told not to oppress the widow. Unscrupulous people will take cruel advantage of a widow’s lack of knowledge as to business matters. The fatherless, the strangers and the poor also are in a position that leaves them vulnerable to such people. Yet this is negative: the New Testament goes much further than this, as for example Gal 6:10, “Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all.” We surely ought not merely to refrain from doing evil, but should positively do good.

Israel had refused to listen to God’s prophets, but closed their ears against the truth of God’s Word (v. 11). They had deliberately made their hearts as hard as a rock, so the law of God would make no impression, nor His Word sent by His Spirit through the prophets. For this reason the great wrath of God burned against them (v. 12).

Just as God cried loudly to Israel but they would not listen, so when at last they cry out in distress when suffering the results of their rebellion, so God said He would not listen (v. 13). Rather, in His righteous government, He scattered them from their land among many nations where they were strangers (v. 14). Since they did not want God, He put them in the company of those who did not know God, that they might learn by experience the bitterness of being away from the kindness and care of their faithful Creator. Their land was left desolate as an awesome governmental judgment from God, with not even travelers passing through it. This was true during the 70 years of captivity and has since been repeated when Israel rejected the Lord Jesus when He came in grace. Now, after many centuries, God is showing mercy in many returning to the land with the nation of Israel firmly established.

The negative side of the answer of God thus emphasizes that Israel had not learned to take to heart the significance of their fasting. Therefore they are not told to cease their fasting, for despite the little apparent revival God had given them, they had not learned the self-judgment God was seeking to teach them.

Fuente: Grant’s Commentary on the Bible

7:1 And it came to pass in the fourth year of king Darius, [that] the word of the LORD came to Zechariah in the fourth [day] of the ninth month, [even] in {a} Chisleu;

(a) Which contained part of November and part of December.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

A. The question from the delegation from Bethel 7:1-3

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

A prophetic message came to Zechariah from the Lord in 518 B.C. The fourth day of the ninth month would have been in early December. Chislev is the Babylonian name of the month. This message, which comprises the following four messages in chapters 7 and 8, came to the prophet almost two years after he received the eight night visions (cf. Zec 1:7) and about halfway through the period of temple reconstruction (520-515 B.C.).

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

; Zec 8:1-23

“THE SEED OF PEACE”

Zec 7:1-14; Zec 8:1-23

THE Visions have revealed the removal of the guilt of the land, the restoration of Israel to their standing before God, the revival of the great national institutions, and Gods will to destroy the heathen forces of the world. With the Temple built, Israel should be again in the position which she enjoyed before the Exile. Zechariah, therefore, proceeds to exhort his people to put away the fasts which the Exile had made necessary, and address themselves, as of old, to the virtues and duties of the civic life. And he introduces his orations to this end by a natural appeal to the experience of the former days.

The occasion came to him when the Temple had been building for two years, and when some of its services were probably resumed. A deputation of Jews appeared in Jerusalem and raised the question of the continuance of the great Fasts of the Exile. Who the deputation were is not certain: probably we ought to delete “Bethel” from the second verse, and read either “El-sareser sent Regem-Melekh and his men to the house of Jehovah to propitiate Jehovah,” or else “the house of El-sareser sent Regem-Melekh and his men to propitiate Jehovah.” It has been thought that they came from the Jews in Babylon: this would agree with their arrival in the ninth month to inquire about a fast in the fifth month. But Zechariahs answer is addressed to Jews in Judea. The deputation limited their inquiry to the fast of the fifth month, which commemorated the burning of the Temple and the City, now practically restored. But with a breadth of view which reveals the prophet rather than the priest, Zechariah replies, in the following chapter, upon all the fasts by which Israel for seventy years had bewailed her ruin and exile. He instances two: that of the fifth month, and that of the seventh month, the date of the murder of Gedaliah, when the last poor remnant of a Jewish state was swept away. {Jer 41:2; 2Ki 25:25} With a boldness which recalls Amos to the very letter, Zechariah asks his people whether in those fasts they fasted at all to their God. Jehovah had not charged them, and in fasting they had fasted for themselves, just as in eating and drinking they had eaten and drunken to themselves. They should rather hearken to the words He really sent them. In a passage, the meaning of which has been perverted by the intrusion of the eighth verse, that therefore ought to be deleted, Zechariah recalls what those words of Jehovah had been in the former times when the land was inhabited and the national life in full course. They were not ceremonial; they were ethical: they commanded justice, kindness, and the care of the helpless and the poor. And it was in consequence of the peoples disobedience to those words that all the ruin came upon them for which they now annually mourned. The moral is obvious if unexpressed. Let them drop their fasts, and practice the virtues the neglect of which had made their fasts a necessity. It is a sane and practical word, and makes us feel how much Zechariah has inherited of the temper of Amos and Isaiah. He rests, as before, upon the letter of the ancient oracles, but only so as to bring out their spirit. With such an example of the use of ancient Scripture, it is deplorable that so many men, both among the Jews and the Christians, should have devoted themselves to the letter at the expense of the spirit.

“And it came to pass in the fourth year of Darius the king, that the Word of Jehovah came to Zechariah on the fourth of the ninth month, Kislev. For these sent to the house of Jehovah, El-sareser and Regem-Melekh and his men, to propitiate Jehovah, to ask of the priests which were in the house of Jehovah of Hosts and of the prophets as follows: Shall I weep in the fifth month with fasting as I have now done so many years? And the Word of Jehovah of Hosts came to me: Speak now to all the people of the land, and to the priests, saying: When ye fasted and mourned in the fifth and in the seventh month, and this for seventy years, did ye fast at all to Me? And when ye eat and when ye drink, are not ye the eaters and ye the drinkers? Are not these the words which Jehovah proclaimed by the hand of the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and at peace, with her cities round about her, and the Negeb and the Shephela, were inhabited?”

“Thus spake Jehovah of Hosts: Judge true judgment, and practice towards each other kindness and mercy; oppress neither widow nor orphan, stranger nor poor, and think not evil in your hearts towards one another. But they refused to hearken, and turned a rebellious shoulder, and their ears they dulled from listening. And their heart they made adamant, so as not to hear the Torah and the words which Jehovah of Hosts sent through His Spirit by the hand of the former prophets; and there was great wrath from Jehovah of Hosts. And it came to pass that, as He had called and they heard not, so they shall call and I will not hear, said Jehovah of Hosts, but I will whirl them away among nations whom they know not. And the land was laid waste behind them, without any to pass to and fro, and they made the pleasant land desolate.”

There follow upon this deliverance ten other short oracles: chapter 8. Whether all of this decalogue are to be dated from the same time as the answer to the deputation about the fasts is uncertain. Some of them appear rather to belong to an earlier date, for they reflect the situation, and even the words, of Haggais oracles, and represent the advent of Jehovah to Jerusalem as still future. But they return to the question of the fasts, treating it still more comprehensively than before, and they close with a promise, fitly spoken as the Temple grew to completion, of the coming of the heathen to worship at Jerusalem.

We have already noticed the tender charm and strong simplicity of these prophecies, and there is little now to add except the translation of them. As with the older prophets, and especially the great Evangelist of the Exile, they start from the glowing love of Jehovah for His people, to which nothing is impossible; they promise a complete return of the scattered Jews to their land, and are not content except with the assurance of a world converted to the faith of their God. With Haggai Zechariah promises the speedy end of the poverty of the little colony; and he adds his own characteristic notes of a reign of peace to be used for hearty labor, bringing forth a great prosperity. Only let men be true and just and kind, thinking no evil of each other, as in those hard days when hunger and the fierce rivalry for sustenance made every ones neighbor his enemy, and the petty life, devoid of large interests for the commonweal, filled their hearts with envy and malice. For ourselves the chief profit of these beautiful oracles is their lesson that the remedy for the sordid tempers and cruel hatreds, engendered by the fierce struggle for existence, is found in civic and religious hopes, in a noble ideal for the national life, and in the assurance that Gods Love is at the back of all, with nothing impossible to it. Amid these glories, however, the heart will probably thank Zechariah most for his immortal picture of the streets of the new Jerusalem: old men and women sitting in the sun, boys and girls playing in all the open places. The motive of it, as we have seen, was found in the circumstances of his own day. Like many another emigration for religions sake, from the heart of civilization to a barren coast, the poor colony of Jerusalem consisted chiefly of men, young and in middle life. The barren years gave no encouragement to marriage. The constant warfare with neighboring tribes allowed few to reach gray hairs. It was a rough and a hard society, unblessed by the two great benedictions of life, childhood and old age. But this should all be changed, and Jerusalem filled with placid old men and women, and with joyous boys and girls. The oracle, we say, had its motive in Zechariahs day. But what an oracle for these times of ours! Whether in the large cities of the old world, where so few of the workers may hope for a quiet old age sitting in the sun, and the childrens days of play are shortened by premature toil and knowledge of evil; or in the newest fringes of the new world, where mens hardness and, coarseness are, in the, struggle for gold, unawed by reverence for age and unsoftened by the fellowship of childhood, -Zechariahs great promise is equally needed. Even there shall it be fulfilled if men will remember his conditions-that the first regard of a community, however straitened in means, be the provision of religion, that truth and whole-hearted justice abound in the gates, with love and loyalty in every heart towards every other.

“And the Word of Jehovah of Hosts came, saying”:-

1. “Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts: I am jealous for Zion with a great jealousy, and with great anger am I jealous for her.”

2. “Thus saith Jehovah: I am returned to Zion, and I dwell in the midst of Jerusalem, and Jerusalem shall be called the City of Troth, {Isa 1:26} and the mountain of Jehovah of Hosts the Holy Mountain.”

3. “Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts: Old men and old women shall yet sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each with staff in hand, for fullness of days; and the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in her streets.”

4. “Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts: Because it seems too wonderful to the remnant of this people in those days, shall it also seem too wonderful to Me?-oracle of Jehovah of Hosts.”

5. “Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts: Lo! I am about to save My people out of the land of the rising and out of the land of the setting of the sun; and I will bring them home, and they shall dwell in the midst of Jerusalem, and they shall be to Me for a people, and I will be to them for God, in troth and in righteousness.”

6. Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts: Strengthen your hands, O ye who have heard in such days such words from the mouth of the prophets, Not merely since the day when the House of Jehovah of Hosts was founded: the sanctuary was to be built! For before those days there was no gain for man, and none to be made by cattle and neither for him that went out nor for him that came in was there any peace from the adversary, and I set every mans hand against his neighbor. But not now as in the past days am I towards the remnant of this people-oracle of Jehovah of Hosts. For I am sowing the seed of peace. The vine shall yield her fruit, and the land yield her increase, and the heavens yield their dew, and I will give them all for a heritage to the remnant of this people. And it shall come to pass, that as ye have been a curse among the nations, O house of Judah and house of Israel, so will I save you and ye shall be a blessing! Be not afraid, strengthen your hands!

7. “For thus saith Jehovah of Hosts: As I have planned to do evil to you, for the provocation your fathers gave Me, saith Jehovah of Hosts, and did not relent, so have I turned and planned in these days to do good to Jerusalem and the house of Judah. Be not afraid! These are the things which ye shall do: Speak truth to one another; truth and wholesome judgment decree ye in your gates; and plan no evil to each other in your hearts, nor take pleasure in false swearing: for it is all these that I hate-oracle of Jehovah.”

“And the Word of Jehovah of Hosts came to me, saying”:-

8. “Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts: The fast of the fourth month, and the fast of the fifth, and the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth, shall become to the house of Judah joy and gladness and happy feasts. But love ye truth and peace.”

9. “Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts: There shall yet come peoples and citizens of great cities; and the citizens of one city will go to another city, saying: Let us go to propitiate Jehovah, and to seek Jehovah of Hosts! I will go too! And many peoples and strong nations shall come to seek Jehovah of Hosts in Jerusalem and to propitiate Jehovah”;

10. “Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts: In those days ten men, of all languages of the nations, shall take hold of the skirt of a Jew and say, We will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.”

Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary