For those who may wish to ‘study’ this chapter, the following simple resources are provided for you. Each passage has a four-Part approach to help you take in and think further about what you have read.

Zech 7:1-14

1 In the fourth year of King Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah on the fourth day of the ninth month, the month of Kislev. 2 The people of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regem-Melek, together with their men, to entreat the Lord 3 by asking the priests of the house of the Lord Almighty and the prophets, “Should I mourn and fast in the fifth month, as I have done for so many years?”

4 Then the word of the Lord Almighty came to me: 5 “Ask all the people of the land and the priests, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months for the past seventy years, was it really for me that you fasted? 6 And when you were eating and drinking, were you not just feasting for yourselves? 7 Are these not the words the Lord proclaimed through the earlier prophets when Jerusalem and its surrounding towns were at rest and prosperous, and the Negev and the western foothills were settled?’”

8 And the word of the Lord came again to Zechariah: 9 “This is what the Lord Almighty said: ‘Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. 10 Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. Do not plot evil against each other.’

11 “But they refused to pay attention; stubbornly they turned their backs and covered their ears. 12 They made their hearts as hard as flint and would not listen to the law or to the words that the Lord Almighty had sent by his Spirit through the earlier prophets. So the Lord Almighty was very angry.

13 “‘When I called, they did not listen; so when they called, I would not listen,’ says the Lord Almighty. 14 ‘I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations, where they were strangers. The land they left behind them was so desolate that no one traveled through it. This is how they made the pleasant land desolate.’”

A. Find Out

1. When did the next word come to the prophet? v.1
2. Who had come to seek the Lord, asking what? v.2,3
3. What challenge was the prophet to bring? v.4-6
4. When had these words previously come? v.7
5. What  4 things had the Lord instructed? v.8-10
6. How had the people responded? v.11-13 (5 things)
7. So how had the Lord responded? v.14

B. Think:

1. Why, do you think, these men had fasted previously?
2. What was the point of their request of the Jerusalem leaders?
3. Why had the Lord been skeptical of fasting previously?

C. Comment:

Apparently some men now come to Jerusalem to see whether their practice of fasting, that they had carried out during the course of the Exile, needed to continue. The various prophecies had come during the reign of Darius and the present one comes in his fourth year (518BC). Various men now came to consult the leaders at the temple.

They had fasted in the 5^th (v.3) & 7^th months (v.5) throughout the Exile, the 5^th month commemorating the siege of Jerusalem when the temple had been destroyed (2 Kings 25:8) and that of the 7^th month to commemorate the death of Gedaliah (Jer 41:1-) the Babylonian appointed governor (Jer 40:5). There had also been fasts of the 4^th & 10^th months (see later Zech 8:19) commemorating the breach of the city (Jer 39:2) and the placing of the land under Babylonian control. So now the rebuilding had started, did they need to continue fasting?

The response to this (v.4 on) was to challenge the people (v.5a) and the priests (v.5b) about their sincerity. Was it self-interest focused, or was it for the loss of reputation of the Lord? (v.5,6).

Previously the Lord had challenged the people through His prophets (v.7) so now (v.8) he reminded them of His accusations about failure to keep the Law (v.9,10) and their refusal to heed Him (v.11-13) and it had been for this that He had sent them into exile. (v.14) The implication was, have the present people learned from all that and changed?

D. Application:

1. We cannot fool God by only apparently appearing spiritual.
2. When God demands righteousness, we would do well to heed Him?