Did You Fast for Me?
1 In the fourth year of King Darius, Yahweh’s word came to Zechariah in the fourth day of the ninth month, the month of Chislev. 2 The people of Bethel sent Sharezer and Regem Melech and their men to entreat Yahweh’s favor, 3 and to speak to the priests of the house of Yahweh of Armies and to the prophets, saying, “Should I weep in the fifth month, separating myself, as I have done these so many years?” 4 Then the word of Yahweh of Armies came to me, saying, 5 “Speak to all the people of the land and to the priests, saying, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and in the seventh month for these seventy years, did you at all fast to me, really to me? 6 When you eat and when you drink, don’t you eat for yourselves and drink for yourselves? 7 Aren’t these the words which Yahweh proclaimed by the former prophets when Jerusalem was inhabited and in prosperity, and its cities around her, and the South and the lowland were inhabited?’” 8 Yahweh’s word came to Zechariah, saying, 9 “Thus has Yahweh of Armies spoken, saying, ‘Execute true judgment, and show kindness and compassion every man to his brother. 10 Don’t oppress the widow, the fatherless, the foreigner, nor the poor; and let none of you devise evil against his brother in your heart.’ 11 But they refused to listen, and turned their backs, and stopped their ears, that they might not hear. 12 Yes, they made their hearts as hard as flint, lest they might hear the law and the words which Yahweh of Armies had sent by his Spirit by the former prophets. Therefore great wrath came from Yahweh of Armies. 13 It has come to pass that, as he called and they refused to listen, so they will call and I will not listen,” said Yahweh of Armies; 14 “but I will scatter them with a whirlwind among all the nations which they have not known. Thus the land was desolate after them, so that no man passed through nor returned; for they made the pleasant land desolate.”
A delegation asks whether to keep a fast, and the answer sets aside the question and asks who the fasting was ever for.
Two years later a delegation arrives from Bethel with a practical question: should I weep in the fifth month, separating myself, as I have done these so many years? Zechariah 7:3
The fifth month was when the temple burned. The fast was not commanded in the law; it was instituted by the people themselves out of grief, and kept for seventy years. Now the temple is being rebuilt, and the delegation wants a ruling on whether the mourning still applies.
The reply does not rule. It asks: when you fasted and mourned in the fifth and in the seventh month for these seventy years, did you at all fast to me, really to me? The doubled phrase presses the point past politeness.
And verse 6 sets the fasting beside its opposite to show that both were self-directed: when you eat and when you drink, don't you eat for yourselves and drink for yourselves? Feasting and abstaining turn out to be the same act performed by the same person for the same audience. The question is not whether to stop, but whether it was ever addressed to anyone.
Verse 7 then locates the real issue in the past: these are the words which Yahweh proclaimed by the former prophets while the city was still standing and prosperous. The generation that lost Jerusalem had the instruction and did not need a ruling.
And the instruction is quoted, so it can be measured against seventy years of fasting: execute true judgment, and show kindness and compassion every man to his brother. Don't oppress the widow, the fatherless, the foreigner, nor the poor Zechariah 7:9–10. Four categories of the unprotected, and nothing about food.
What follows is a description of refusal in escalating physical terms: they refused to listen, turned their backs, stopped their ears, and made their hearts as hard as flint. Four movements, each further from hearing than the last, ending in a stone.
Then the symmetry that gives the chapter its weight: as he called and they refused to listen, so they will call and I will not listen. The silence they are complaining about is described as the shape of their own, returned. And the land was left desolate, with the last clause assigning the cause — they made the pleasant land desolate.
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