Zechariah 7:1 - Meaning and Application

This special message from the prophet, recorded here and in the next chapter, came more than two years after the earlier one in which he described his visions. You can see that by comparing the date here, the ninth month of Darius's fourth year (Zechariah 7:1), with the earlier date, the eighth month of his second year (Zechariah 1:1). That does not mean Zechariah was inactive in the meantime. He and Haggai kept prophesying until the temple was finished in Darius's sixth year (Ezra 6:14-15), but no later sermon from Zechariah was put into writing until now.

God can be honored, his work can move forward, and his people can be helped by spoken teaching as well as written teaching. In fact, repeating and pressing home what has already been taught is just as useful as bringing something new. Here the prophet begins with a question about fasting, and that question opens the way for instruction from God.

Some people were sent to ask the priests and prophets whether they should keep observing their yearly fasts, especially the fast in the fifth month. It is not certain whether these men came from the Jews still in Babylon, who had lost the appointed feasts and made up for them with fasts called for by sorrow, or from the returned exiles living in the countryside, as some think because they are called "the people of the land" (Zechariah 7:5). Either way, the answer was meant not only for the messengers, but for all the people.

The men who came were Sherezer and Regem-melech, men of some rank and importance, because they came with their attendants. They did not think it beneath them to be sent on this errand. That was an honor in two ways: first, they were servants in God's house, there to do their duty and receive God’s direction. The greatest people are still smaller than the least command of Jesus Christ. Second, they served as messengers for God's people, helping carry out their concerns. People with property and time should use it for the public good, and by doing good they become truly great.

Their errand had two parts. First, they were sent to pray before the Lord, and some think they were also to offer sacrifice, as was common then, while bringing their prayers with it. The Jews in captivity prayed toward the temple (Daniel 6:10), and now that the temple was being rebuilt, they sent representatives to pray in it. They remembered that God had said his house would be called a house of prayer for all people (Isaiah 56:7). In prayer we must place ourselves before the Lord, knowing that his eye is on us and keeping our eyes on him.

Second, they came to ask God about his will. When we bring requests to God, we should also be ready to learn from him. If we refuse to hear his law, we cannot expect our prayers to please him. So we should long to live in the house of the Lord all our days, so we can ask there and learn there (Psalm 27:4). We should not only say, "Lord, what will you do for me?" but also, "Lord, what do you want me to do?"

They asked the priests in the house of the Lord and the prophets as well. The priests were the regular teachers for ordinary matters, and the prophets handled unusual cases. God had given both, and they wanted to use both if either could tell them God's mind. Since God gives different gifts to different people for the good of all, we should make use of all of them as needed.

They were not so attached to the priests that they distrusted the prophets, nor so taken with the prophets that they ignored the priests. They spoke to both, and in doing so they honored the God of Israel and the one Spirit who works through all his servants. God could speak by the Urim or by prophets (1 Samuel 28:6), so they would not neglect either way. The priests and prophets were not at odds with each other, so the people should not create divisions between them. The prophets did correct what was wrong in the priests, but they also taught that the priest's lips should keep knowledge, and people should seek the law from his mouth, because he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts (Malachi 2:7). Those who want to know God's mind should consult God's ministers and, in hard cases, ask those whose work it is to study Scripture.

The question itself was simple: Should they continue to weep in the fifth month and keep setting themselves apart, as they had done for so many years? Their past practice is worth noting. They had kept these solemn fasts not only through the seventy years of captivity, but even to that time, twenty years after liberty had been announced. They observed set times for humble prayer, as their circumstances allowed, whether in private, in their families, or in whatever gatherings for worship they could have.

In this question they mention only one fast, the one in the fifth month, but Zechariah 8:19 shows that they kept four yearly fasts. One was in the fourth month, remembering the breaking of Jerusalem's wall (Jeremiah 52:6). Another was in the fifth month, remembering the burning of the temple (Jeremiah 52:12-13). Another was in the seventh month, remembering the murder of Gedaliah, which completed their scattering. The last was in the tenth month, remembering the start of the siege of Jerusalem (2 Kings 25:1). It was good that they kept these fasts, because they humbled themselves under the painful judgments that had brought weeping and mourning. Those fasts also helped them fit themselves to their troubles and prepare for deliverance. They would also teach their children early to understand the Lord's hand against them.

Their present uncertainty was whether they should keep these fasts or stop. The question is worded as if one man asked it, "Should I weep?" but it was really the concern of many, and the answer to one would answer all. Or perhaps many had already stopped, but the one who asked would not simply follow what others were doing. If God wanted him to continue, he would do so no matter what anyone else did. His fasting is described as weeping and setting himself apart.

A religious fast should be kept in a solemn way. It is marked not only by abstaining, that is, setting aside the usual lawful comforts of life, but also by godly sorrow for sin, shown here by weeping. Their question, “Should I still keep such days to humble myself, as I have done for so many years?” points to a fast that had lasted seventy years, counted from the last captivity, as in (Zechariah 1:12). The question also suggests they were willing to keep fasting if God still required it, even though it was hard on the body.

There is something to be said for continuing these fasts. Fasting and prayer are good at any time, and they do much good. We always have enough reason and need to humble ourselves before God. To throw off these fasts would show that they had become too careless, and it would likely make them even more careless.

But there is also something to be said for stopping them. God had changed the way he was dealing with them and had begun to show them mercy. Should they not then change the way they served him? When the bridegroom has returned, why should the children of the bridechamber fast? Everything is beautiful at its proper time. As for the fast of the fifth month, which they especially asked about, that fast remembered the burning of the temple. Since the temple was now moving toward being rebuilt, that fast seemed especially ready to be set aside.

Still, since they had kept it for so long, they did not want to give it up without advice and without learning God’s will in the matter. A good pattern of worship that has helped us and others should not be changed without good reason, and never without careful thought. The answer that follows suggests that, though their question sounded reasonable, they were not fully sincere. They were more concerned about the ceremony than the heart of the matter. They seemed to boast of their fasting and to blame God because he had not returned to them sooner in mercy, saying, in effect, “We have done this for so many years.” That is like the complaint in (Isaiah 58:3), “Why have we fasted, and you do not see it?”

Some think unbelief and distrust of God’s promises were at the root of their question. If they had trusted those promises, they would not have doubted that the fasts should end now that the reason for them was gone. So the first answer is a sharp rebuke of their hypocrisy, aimed not only at the people of the land but also at the priests, who had set up these fasts and may have wanted to keep them for their own purposes. They thought these fasts had made God indebted to them, but they were wrong. The fasts were not pleasing to him unless they were kept in a better way and for a better purpose.

What they had done that was outwardly good had not been done rightly (Zechariah 7:5). They had fasted and mourned. They were not guilty of ignoring the duty itself, though it was hard on the body, and their fasts had been continually before God (Psalm 50:8). But they had not handled the duty in the right way. Those who come asking about their duty must be willing to hear their faults first. And those who are eager about the outside of a duty should honestly examine whether they have the right concern for the inside as well.

First, they had not looked to God in their fasting. “Did you really fast for me, for me?” God appeals to their own consciences, and they would have to agree that they had not been sincere. Much more would God, who is greater than the heart and knows everything. There was the outward shape of the duty, but not its life, soul, or power. The repeated words, “for me, for me,” stress how much weight belongs to this point in every holy exercise. Such things must be done to God, with his word as the rule and his glory as the goal. We should seek to please him, win his favor, and show sincerity of heart before him. Without that, every fast is empty. To fast without fasting to God is to mock him and provoke him.

This was true of those who used fasting as a cover for sin, like Jezebel, or as a way to win people’s praise, like the Pharisees, or who kept the outward signs of humility while their hearts stayed proud, like Ahab. Did they fast to God, for him? Is that the fast God has chosen? (Isaiah 58:5). If the outward signs of fasting, even when frequent, long, and strict, do not sharpen devotion, stir up prayer, deepen godly sorrow, and change the mind and life for the better, then they miss the point. God will not accept them as done for him.

Second, in fasting they had the same self-focused mind that they had in eating and drinking (Zechariah 7:6). On ordinary days, and perhaps even on fast days when they gave themselves permission to eat and drink as they wished, they simply followed their own desires. They had always done what they wanted. So why were they now pretending to want to know God’s mind? Even in their religious feasts and thanksgivings, they had shown no more concern for God than in their fasts. More likely, this refers to their common meals. They did no more to honor God in fasting and praying than in eating and drinking. Self was still the center where all their actions, natural, civil, and religious, came together.

They did not need to worry so much about keeping these fasts unless they had kept them better. We miss our purpose in eating and drinking when we do it for ourselves. We should eat and drink for God’s glory (1 Corinthians 10:31), so that our bodies are ready to serve our souls in his service. The main good thing they should have done was left undone (Zechariah 7:7). “Should you not have listened to the words the Lord cried out through the earlier prophets?” Yes, that is what they should have done on their fast days. It was not enough to weep and set themselves apart as signs of sorrow for the judgments they were under. They should also have searched the writings of the prophets, so they could see why God had argued with their fathers, and could learn from those troubles not to follow the same sins.

You ask, “Shall we keep doing what we have done with fasting?” No, you must do what you have not yet done. You must repent of your sins and reform your lives. This is what we now call you to, and it is the same message the earlier prophets gave your fathers.

To move them more deeply with the ruin sin had brought, and to lead them to repent, the prophet reminds them of their country’s former prosperity. Jerusalem was then lived in and thriving, but now it lies desolate and in trouble. The towns around it, which are now in ruins, were also inhabited and peaceful then. The land was full of people as well: men lived in the south of the plain, which was not fortified at all, yet they were safe there, and it was fruitful, so they lived in plenty.

At that time God, through the prophets, called to them earnestly and urgently to change their ways and actions, or else their prosperity would soon end. The prophet’s point is this: they should have learned from that history that what was required of their fathers to prevent judgment is now required of them to remove judgment. If they do not obey, all their fasting and weeping mean nothing.

The lesson is clear. The later prophets speak the same message as the earlier ones. Whether people are living in comfort or in hardship, they must be called to leave their sins and do their duty. That must always be the main call.