Zechariah 7: Obedience Better Than Fasting

Theology and Politics from a Conservative, Biblical Perspective

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Zechariah 7 is a very interesting, practical chapter. It needs to be read and studied by every Christian in order to understand how the LORD views our life and the things we do because we are Christians.

Essentially, Zechariah 7 provides a question by Israelites to God and His response to them regarding whether or not the people should continue weeping and fasting. To provide the context, we need to recall that Jerusalem had been overcome by Babylonian forces and the people who were not killed, were removed from Jerusalem/Israel to the land of Babylon under King Nebuchadnezzar.

Why did this occur? Simply because the people of Israel were living in defiance of God and His righteous decrees. He will only stand for that for so long even though He is longsuffering and patient. Eventually, that patience runs out and He moves to deal with recalcitrant people who refuse to do what is right.

By Zechariah 7, the people had been captive in Babylon for roughly 68 years, just shy of the requisite 70 years. Because they had been forced out of their Land, they wept and fasted each year to remember the event. The trouble was that though they were remembering the event with weeping and fasting, God had not necessarily told them to do that. Beyond this, had they lived in obedience to Him, they would not have been removed from the Land forcibly and there would have been no need to fast and weep for their loss. They brought it on themselves by their refusal to live as God wanted them to live.

But instead of recognizing this fact, the people sent a couple of representatives to “inquire” of the priests and ultimately, of Zechariah the prophet regarding their weeping and fasting over that event.

1 Now in the fourth year of King Darius it came to pass that the word of the Lord came to Zechariah, on the fourth day of the ninth month, Chislev, 2 when the people sent Sherezer, with Regem-Melech and his men, to the house of God, to pray before the Lord, 3 and to ask the priests who were in the house of the Lord of hosts, and the prophets, saying, “Should I weep in the fifth month and fast as I have done for so many years?”

God provided FOUR messages dealing with empty ritualism of the Israelites. The first message came to Zechariah in 518 BC, which was “in the fourth day of the ninth month, even in Chislev.” This would make it December and “Chislev” is the Babylonian name for that month. This message came to Zechariah roughly two years after the first 8 visions in Chapters 1-6.

The representatives came from Bethel. Bethel was about 10 miles north of Jerusalem and the Israelites sent the two representatives to ask the priests and prophets in the capital about how they should worship the Lord (cf. Mal. 1:9). The basic question was should Israelites “weep” and “abstain” from certain foods (fast)?

Interestingly enough, the only fast that the Mosaic Law prescribed was on the Day of Atonement (Lev. 16:29; 23:27-32). Jewish tradition had ADDED fasts/weeping to certain days and holidays they thought worthy. By this time in Israel’s history, there were four fasts among those exiled – all connected with destruction of Israel (586 BC). The one “in the fifth month” memorialized the destruction of the temple (cf. 2 Kings 25:8-10).

Since the temple was almost complete in being rebuilt (cf. Ezra 6:16), did the Lord want His people to continue to fast? The people knew there was 70 yrs of captivity (Jer. 25:11-12) and 68 of those years had passed. Should Israel still fast over destruction of temple since it was almost rebuilt?

I’m wondering if a better question would have been, “Did the Lord actually want us to weep and fast over this situation to begin with?” as it appears no one actually asked that question 68 years prior.

These men were concerned about orthodoxy living among apostates – remind you of our day??? So was it entirely orthodoxy (practice) or something else that may have also motivated them to inquire of the priests and Zechariah?

The Lord’s response seems to tell us. Though the question seemed to be an honest one, it turns out to be hypocritical as seen in the Lord’s response to the men, which appears unmistakable. It’s possible that the question posed to Zechariah was more of posturing than actual true piety. Did the men only seek to appear righteous before Zechariah and the priests?

We can only hope that the men were actually seeking honest council rather than simply trying to impress Zechariah, but again, based on the Lord’s response to the question, it appears that the question was hypocritical. The Lord provided four responses to this question posed to Zechariah.

Zechariah 7:4-5 speaks to entire nation of Israel as the question had profound implications for all people. Ultimately, God probes, wondering whether the people had simply observed the fasts outwardly as ritual or from the heart? Was observance of fasts for God’s benefit or theirs? The Israelites had turned these man-made fasts into opportunities to feel sorry for themselves. I’m wondering if I do that sometimes? This is clearly not a problem that Jewish people only suffer from as we are all capable of feeling sorry for ourselves and doing things to gain the honor of other people, so that they’ll see us as pious. But the Lord sees our hearts. He knows the truth whether or not we are willing to acknowledge that truth. It seems to be the case with the men who came from Bethel to the priests and Zechariah in Jerusalem.

Zechariah 7:6-7 speaks also to entire nation of Israel; they “ate and drank” but ultimately did it for themselves, not God. Again, the Israelites were more concerned with ritual observations – outward appearance – as opposed to right living (vv 8-10).

They needed to:

• dispense true justice (Heb. mishpat)
• exercise kindness (Heb. hesed) “and compassion” (Heb. rahamim) toward each other
• not to oppress the weak and vulnerable among them, and
• not to plot evil against each other (Cf Isaiah 58:10-11)

These things should have not only been obvious to the Israelites, but second nature, yet throughout the Old Testament (and even throughout the New), God has to remind His people how they should live and what they should not be doing. Yet, too often, they continued living in ways that were an affront to God. This is what got them kicked out of the Land time and time again.

Zechariah 7:10 reveals what was in their hearts. They were stubborn, heartless, uncaring about exercising true justice and righteous living. They literally refused to hear (stopped their ears), God (v11). They didn’t want to be bothered with living righteously. They simply wanted to live the way they wanted to live but at times, have an outward appearance of being devoted to God and His ways.

Does this sound familiar? It should because we have a lot of that happening within Christendom today. Many, many people who claim to be Christians, stating they follow Jesus, actually live in ways that deny that and the world can easily see it. They are put off by it and see those types of Christians as true hypocrites because they are that.

Today, average Christians are more interested in following after some pastor or Christian leader who will give their ears a good scratching rather than telling them the truth about what God expects from us. Of course, this should not be. This by no means intends to infer that Christians today can live perfect lives before God, but too many are not even trying. They started off the starting line fine enough but grew tired of pushing themselves, so they veered from the race to the sidelines where life is more comfortable for them. They found people who think as they do and place themselves under leaders who encourage them in their laziness and unfruitfulness before God.

Do we really think it was easy for Jesus to live sinlessly? He took temptation to the nth degree, yet never caved. Consider what Paul went through or most of the other apostles. The persecution they faced and ultimately, martyrdom was faced in His strength. They never gave up, but continued to push on in Jesus for that high calling. We need to compare our lives with theirs and see what we may be lacking.

Certainly the Israelites lacked a great deal. They were fine when God’s graciousness shined on them. But they often saw that as a mark of approval on their lifestyles so it didn’t matter how they lived. Since it took God so long to come to a point of judging them (which was mistaken for God not noticing anything), they came to believe that since nothing bad happened, they were good. When evil did overtake them in judgment, then they wept for themselves and fasted to try to show God they were sincere. Unfortunately, their sincerity was an outward cloak, covering the fact that they were simply feeling sorry for themselves and wanted God’s blessing in spite of their self-centeredness.

Throughout this repeated process, their hearts became stone, unmovable (v12). Had they allowed His judgment to enter and soften their hearts, they would have realized they needed to obey the Law given by the Moses and the prophets. Since the Israelites would not hear, God refused to hear them (v13).

Here are some questions for us: Can this happen to us? Can Christians find themselves in the exact same spot? If so, how do we avoid this? I think it’s easy to realize that it can happen to us if we are not careful and diligent in the way we live. We can avoid it by ensuring that we take our relationship with Jesus seriously, as we might with other important people in our lives. It is because we cannot see or hear Jesus that we tend to stray. This happens because we are not in His Word daily, reading, considering, memorizing, reminding. How can we possibly get to know Him if we are not in His Word regularly? It’s impossible though to hear some tell it, God will still “talk” to us. But even if He does, how can we confirm it if we are not familiar enough with what He has already spoken through His Word?

Not only did God NOT hear the Israelites… (Isa. 6:10; Acts 28:27), but He also scattered them in the wind throughout the nations as He promised He would. He had warned them plenty of times going all the way back to Moses and Mt. Sinai. They had no excuse at all because they had been warned repeatedly if they failed. Zechariah 7:13-14 tells us God became deaf to the Israelites prayers. He refused to listen to them due to their abject hypocrisy and because of it, Israel was kicked out of the Promised Land and it was left desolate.

But not forever…because God always held out hope to that nation and still does today. It is the same hope He holds out to Christians who fall and fail. We can always return to Him but we must want to return with our hearts not just our heads.

There are many promises God holds out to His children. For Israel, certain promises will come true during and at the end of the coming Tribulation. For those who love the spirit of prophecy, we know that God has a program for Israel and for the Church and we know that salvation for both groups is the same – by faith in Jesus and His shed blood. Yet, this does not mean He stopped working with Israel and the only way to arrive to the opposite conclusion is to allegorize most of the prophetic text in the Scriptures.

God is continually holding out His hands to those who stubbornly refuse to do things His way – both Jews and Christians. One day, He will save the entire final remnant of Israel (Romans 9-11), just as He will continue saving people today into the Church, His Body. Just as He has a specific purpose for my life in Him, He has a specific purpose for your life in Him and though we might both have salvation, His purposes for you and me may be completely different.

Christian, it is extremely important that we do what we can as Christians to ensure that we are not being hypocritical in our walk with Jesus. We should learn from the mistakes made by Israel so that we are kept from making the same mistakes.

During Zechariah 7, the Israelites were far more concerned with outward rituals than inward righteousness and true piety. Just the fact that they sent representatives to ask the question of whether or not they should continue fasting and weeping shows that they truly did not understand why God kicked them out of the Land in the first place.

What is on display here is not their piety but their hypocrisy. They started weeping and fasting as an outward show to God of how sorry they were about having been kicked out of the Land, as if something unusual had happened to them that they didn’t deserve. They failed to comprehend the fact that they had been removed because of the fact that they refused to live as God wanted them to live.

May we as Christians guard ourselves from falling into that same trap. Look seriously at your life. Determine whether or not you are actually following Jesus, doing the things He wants you to do, living the way He wants you to live.

I want to delve more deeply into this subject in a separate article on what the actual purposes of the Christians are in this life. I hope you’ll join me for that.

Theology and Politics from a Conservative, Biblical Perspective

Source: https://studygrowknowblog.com/2025/01/06/zechariah-7-obedience-better-than-fasting/