Zechariah 7
IN 587 BC Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians and the temple was destroyed. A few decades later, Persia’s King Cyrus was moved by God to have the exiles return to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple. The work started well enough, but opposition soon arose and halted the construction. It was in the second year of King Darius that the rebuilding effort resumed. And it was around that time that Zechariah, along with Haggai, prophesied to the Jews.
The greater part of the Book of Zechariah records visions that the prophet saw—visions relating to the Messiah that would come, the spiritual temple that He would build, and the judgments that He would ultimately bring upon the unsaved.
Chapter 7, however, is narrative in style. It deals with the question of fasting, and through it, God expresses His disgust with hypocrites. Since today’s Christendom is dominated by “professed believers”, the message is highly pertinent. Let’s look at it verse by verse.
I. The people’s inquiry
The first verse specifies the date the word of God came to the prophet. We then read in the next two verses:
When they had sent unto the house of God Sherezer and Regemmelech, and their men, to pray before the Lord, and to speak unto the priests which were in the house of the Lord of hosts, and to the prophets, saying, Should I weep in the fifth month, separating myself, as I have done these so many years?
The people want to inquire of God if they should continue to fast in the fifth month. Why the fifth month? Answer: to commemorate the fall of Jerusalem, for God reveals in II Kings 25:8,9:
And in the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month, which is the nineteenth year of king Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, came Nebuzaradan, captain of the guard, a servant of the king of Babylon, unto Jerusalem: and he burnt the house of the Lord, and the king’s house, and all the houses of Jerusalem, and every great man’s house burnt he with fire.
Prayer meetings. In today’s dead corporate church, many routinely attend prayer meetings to praise and inquire of God. When special needs for God’s help and guidance arise, they even hold prayer sessions that go on for days. Some actually fast. Supposedly, God would honor such acts of self-humbling with answered prayers.
I myself know of churches that from time to time fast and pray around the clock on a relay basis. Their “prayer warriors” would pray and fast over a number of days in shifts. One group would go from, say, six in the morning until noon, a second group from noon to six in the afternoon, and so on. They want to show God that they are willing to suffer hunger to win His blessings.
II. The Lord’s response
Sincere though the people referred to in verse 2 seem, God responds to their inquiry with a curt reproof. We read in verses 4 and 5:
Then came the word of the Lord of 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?
Parenthetically, the fasting and mourning in the seventh month was ordered by God in Leviticus 23:27: “On the tenth day of this seventh month there shall be a day of atonement: it shall be an holy convocation unto you; and ye shall afflict your souls, and offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord.” On that day of atonement, the people were to mourn over all the sins that they had committed against God and afflict their souls by fasting.
Here, God rebukes the people because He sees through their pious outward behavior, knowing that they are just hypocritically going through the rituals. A sharper rebuke of such hypocrisy is found in Isaiah 58:4,5:
Behold, ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness: ye shall not fast as ye do this day, to make your voice to be heard on high. Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the Lord?
Reward? In the Sermon on the Mount, our Lord Jesus touches on this subject. He first says in Matthew 6:5-8:
And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.
On the matter of fasting, He says in verse 16: “Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.”
Abomination. This applies to those prayer meetings in dead churches. Not having been graced by God with a new birth, most, if not all, of the participants are not really children of God. They don’t realize that “The Lord is far from the wicked: but he heareth the prayer of the righteous” (Prov. 15:29) and “He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be abomination” (28:9).
Going through long days of fasting and enduring long hours of hunger will not in any way win some extra reward from God. Because they may have impressed some unbelievers, the Bible insists, they have their reward from men already.
The fact is, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights” (James 1:17). Implicit in the word “gift” is the grace of God, which is God giving us something that we don’t deserve. A true believer should never expect any work on his part to earn God’s special favor. However much we minister for the Lord, we are “unprofitable servants” merely doing our duty.
Wrong feasting. God considers the Jews’ feasting to be no better than their fasting. He says in verse 6, “And when ye did eat, and when ye did drink, did not ye eat for yourselves, and drink for yourselves?”
In the Old Testament ceremonial laws, the Israelites are commanded to gather and feast joyfully on specific days. Among other things, those feasts symbolically point to our partaking of the Lord Jesus so that we become united with Him. We read in John 6:54-56:
Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him.
The Jews were commanded to joyfully attend specific feasts also to display their gratitude for having been given salvation. Again in connection with the Feast of the Tabernacles, for example, God says in Deuteronomy 16:15, “Seven days shalt thou keep a solemn feast unto the Lord thy God in the place which the Lord shall choose: because the Lord thy God shall bless thee in all thine increase, and in all the works of thine hands, therefore thou shalt surely rejoice.”
The Jewish people do not have these truths in mind, however, when they feast. They are just indulging themselves. Thus, even sharper rebukes are found elsewhere in the Bible. For example, God says in Amos 5:21-23:
I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies. Though ye offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts. Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols.
Adament hearts. The trouble with these people is that they do not heed God’s warning. Indicting them for such, God says in verses 11 and 12:
But they refused to hearken, and pulled away the shoulder, and stopped their ears, that they should not hear. Yea, they made their hearts as an adamant stone, lest they should hear the law, and the words which the Lord of hosts hath sent in his spirit by the former prophets: therefore came a great wrath from the Lord of hosts.
Worse yet, they refuse to learn from history. When Jerusalem was still prosperous, God sent them prophets to warn them against forgetting where their blessings had come from. Instead of changing their ways, they mistreated the prophets instead. As a result, God delivered Israel into the hand of the Babylonians. Alluding to this fact, God says in verse 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, when men inhabited the south and the plain?
Actually, even before they entered the Promised Land, God had warned them through Moses in Deuteronomy 8:11-14:
Beware that thou forget not the Lord thy God, in not keeping his commandments, and his judgments, and his statutes, which I command thee this day: Lest when thou hast eaten and art full, and hast built goodly houses, and dwelt therein; And when thy herds and thy flocks multiply, and thy silver and thy gold is multiplied, and all that thou hast is multiplied; Then thine heart be lifted up, and thou forget the Lord thy God, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.
As it is written. People in today’s apostate churches are much like those Jews. Thankfully, God has not lost control; He has well anticipated this falling away, saying in II Timothy 3:1-5:
This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.
III. The fast that God desires
Instead of hypocritical self-humbling, God now spells out what kind of fasting He is really interested in. He says in verses 8-10:
And the word of the Lord came unto Zechariah, saying, Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, Execute true judgment, and shew mercy and compassions every man to his brother: And oppress not the widow, nor the fatherless, the stranger, nor the poor; and let none of you imagine evil against his brother in your heart.
In the Bible, God uses widows, orphans and strangers to represent those elect that are unsaved. Psalm 146:9 says, for instance, “The Lord preserveth the strangers; he relieveth the fatherless and widow: but the way of the wicked he turneth upside down.”
In other words, the fasting that God wants is for us to mourn for the lost and bring them the gospel. A similar command is given in Isaiah 58:6,7:
Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?
IV. Judgment against the church
Again, God knows that the end-time church, like ancient Israel, will persist in hypocrisy instead of turning back to Him. He thus closes the chapter by declaring in verses 13 and 14:
Therefore it is come to pass, that as he cried, and they would not hear; so they cried, and I would not hear, saith the Lord of hosts: But I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations whom they knew not. Thus the land was desolate after them, that no man passed through nor returned: for they laid the pleasant land desolate.
In short, God is saying here, these are not really My people, because they don’t listen to me. They are hypocrites. Therefore, I won’t hear their prayers. They are getting what they deserve!