Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadPaul Kretzmann Commentary - Zechariah 7:1 - 7:7
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
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.