Zechariah 7 · ESV Study Bible

The Crown and the Temple

A Call for Justice and Mercy

ZECHARIAH 7 [†] o In the fourth year of King Darius, the word of the LORD came to Zechariah on the fourth day of the ninth month, which is p Chislev. 2[†]Now the people of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regem-melech and their men q to entreat the favor of the LORD, 3 r saying to the priests of the house of the LORD of hosts and s the prophets, “Should I weep and t abstain in u the fifth month, as I have done for so many years?”

4Then the word of the LORD of hosts came to me: 5[†]“Say to all the people of the land and the priests, When you fasted and mourned in u the fifth month and in v the seventh, for these w seventy years, x was it x for me that you fasted? 6 y And when you eat and when you drink, do you not eat for yourselves and drink for yourselves? 7[†] z Were not these the words that the LORD proclaimed a by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and prosperous, b with her cities around her, and the b South and the b lowland were inhabited?”

8And the word of the LORD came to Zechariah, saying, 9[^][†]“Thus says the LORD of hosts, c Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another, 10 d do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, e or the poor, and f let none of you devise evil against another in your heart.” 11But g they refused to pay attention h and turned a stubborn shoulder and stopped their ears that they might not hear. [1] 12[†] i They made their hearts diamond-hard j lest they should hear the law and the words that the LORD of hosts had sent j by his Spirit through k the former prophets. l Therefore great anger came from the LORD of hosts. 13 m “As I [2] called, and they would not hear, m so they called, and I would not hear,” says the LORD of hosts, 14[†] n “and I scattered them with a whirlwind among all o the nations that they had not known. p Thus the land they left was desolate, q so that no one went to and fro, r and the pleasant land was made desolate.”

ZECHARIAH—NOTE ON 7:1–8:23 From Fasts to Feasts. This section mentions fasts that commemorate the destruction of Jerusalem, which will be transformed into feasts celebrating its renewal. The renewal gives the people another chance to exhibit a society of justice and love, and to be the vehicle by which light comes to all the world.

ZECHARIAH—NOTE ON 7:1–14 Ritual or Reality. Like the former prophets before him, Zechariah emphasizes that ritual without obedience and justice is empty.

ZECHARIAH—NOTE ON 7:2–3 Sharezer and Regem-melech came from Bethel (v. 2) in the north with an inquiry addressed to the priests and the prophets (v. 3). The dual address may be because the question dealt with an issue of ritual to which there was no obvious answer in the law given to Moses. Weeping and abstaining from food and other luxuries were ritual acts of mourning aimed at demonstrating repentance and thereby changing God’s disposition toward the penitent (see 2 Sam. 12:21–22). The fifth month (Zech. 7:3) was the month in which the temple in Jerusalem had been destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar nearly 70 years earlier. Now that the temple was being rebuilt, it was natural to question whether there was any need to observe the rite any longer.

ZECHARIAH—NOTE ON 7:12 The law and the words of the former prophets were the two parallel means of God’s communicating his will to his people, through the priests and prophets. Yet former generations “refused to pay attention” (v. 11) to God’s self-revelation. They turned their backs on the Lord, closing their ears and hardening their hearts, thus incurring his anger (1:2).

ZECHARIAH—NOTE ON 7:7 The South is the area to the south of Jerusalem, around Beersheba, while the lowland is to the west of Jerusalem. Though the original inquiry reflected a ritual concern, the Lord’s response asks a deeper question: “When you fasted and mourned, was it really out of a concern over the loss of my favor? If you stop fasting and return to normal eating and drinking, does that mean an abandonment of that concern?” If the people had learned the lesson that the destruction of the temple was intended to teach, and had truly repented and turned from their sins, then they could stop fasting. The temple was being rebuilt. But if they have simply been fasting for themselves all along, then their fasting was a waste of time.

ZECHARIAH—NOTE ON 7:1 The ninth month of the fourth year of King Darius is two years after Zechariah’s earlier prophecies, December 518 B.C., after the ceremony to reestablish the temple but before its completion. The month Chislev overlaps with November/December (see The Hebrew Calendar).

ZECHARIAH—NOTE ON 7:9–10 The test of true repentance is a life of obedience to God, specifically, true judgments that show kindness and mercy (v. 9) to the widow and fatherless, the sojourner and the poor (v. 10). These naturally disadvantaged groups in society were easy targets for the strong to oppress. This concern for the weaker members of society was what the Lord had required of his people in the former days, before Jerusalem’s fall.

ZECHARIAH—NOTE ON 7:5 Zechariah’s ruling applied not simply to the petitioners but to all the inhabitants of the land, and also included the fast observed in the seventh month commemorating the assassination of Gedaliah (Jer. 41:1–3). seventy years. See note on Jer. 25:11.

ZECHARIAH—NOTE ON 7:14 The Lord’s judgment came upon his people like a whirlwind, scattering them among nations that they had not known. Fittingly, they themselves joined the ranks of the vulnerable classes that they had oppressed, and the land was left desolate.