Bible Discussion Thread

Ze.7 (1 of 2)

Then As Now

And it came to pass in the fourth year of king Darius, that the word of theLordcame unto 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 theLord,/And to speak unto the priests which were in the house of theLordof hosts, and to the prophets, saying, Should I weep in the fifth month, separating myself, as I have done these so many years? (vv.1-3)

On December 4, 518 B.C. a delegation came to Jerusalem with a question about fasting. At this point, the temple was somewhere around halfway completed. Against this the Zechariah receives the word of God that forms the gist of this chapter.

4Then came the word of theLordof 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?

God did not institute these fastings to commemorate their disobedience and consequences. For instance we have in the Book of Jeremiah the assasination of Gedaliah and mass murder of 80 men (Je.41:1-10)

6And when ye did eat, and when ye did drink, did not ye eat for yourselves, and drink for yourselves?

7Should ye not hear the words which theLordhath 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?

vv.6-7 God noticed those who enquired of the Lord were approaching in their need and they were no different than those who were in the days of Jesus, "These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me./They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.' (Matt.15:8-9). The same superficiality which we see.